Jumper
2008
*
Director: Doug Liman
Cast: Hayden Christensen, Jamie Bell, Rachel Bilson, Samuel L. Jackson, Diane Lane, Michael Rooker, Annasophia Robb, Max Thieriot
A teenage boy discovers that he can teleport himself anywhere in the world. Fast forward a few years and he's a smug playboy who exploits his skill to live the high life in New York City. By then the Paladins (the arch enemy of Jumpers) are onto him, which exposes his former high school sweetheart to danger. Doug Liman takes a gimmicky science fiction concept, a stupid and selfish hero, and a truckload of plot holes, and creates an infuriatingly dumb 80 minute chase scene. The incredibly wooden Hayden Christensen proves that his good work in Shattered Glass was an anomaly. Elsewhere in the film, Jamie Bell plays an annoyingly chatty British Jumper, Samuel L. Jackson phones in another bad guy performance, this time in a freakish white hair, and Diane Lane is completely wasted as the hero's mother. Very loosely based on Steven Gould's novel.
