Review: Jumper

* *

Hayden Christiansen, Jamie Bell, Rachel Bilson, Michael Rooker, Diane Lane, Max Theriot. Written by David S. Goyer, Jim Uhls, Simon Kinberg. Directed by Doug Liman. Rated PG-13. 90 minutes. 20^th Century Fox.

It’s hard to believe that Jumper, the soulless new special effects extravaganza featuring a wooden performance from Hayden Christiansen, was directed by Doug Liman, the talented filmmaker behind Go and The Bourne Identity, delivering a high-concept film that is utterly empty. Score one for special effects; zero for interest.

Teen David Rice (Max Theriot) discovers he has a genetic ability to teleport himself, a gift he uses to leave his small town upbringing and reinvent himself (as Hayden Christiansen) in New York, where he embarks on a life of leisure and adventure. Moving at will around the globe, robbing banks, visiting Egypt, London and everywhere in between, he still pines for his childhood sweetheart Millie (Rachel Bilson), all grown up when he returns home and carts her off to Rome, foolishly attempting to impress her with a close-up view inside the Coliseum.

After discovering a religious extremist sect called the paladins who are out to destroy "jumpers" like himself, he enlists the help of Griffin (Jamie Bell), a wild-card jumper and paladin killer who knows the ropes and informs him of the centuries-old conflict. To Griffin’s dismay, David suggests a superhero-like alliance between the two in order to defeat a powerful paladin enemy, Agent Roland (Samuel Jackson), determined to rid the world of jumpers whom he perceives as abominations. Still with me? I didn’t think so.

If there’s an emptier character than David Rice in any recent film, I can’t recall him, and this one is a real dud. One would think that he would occasionally use his power for some kind of greater good. Yet he does nothing but steal, show off, ignore his lonely father (Michael Rooker), beat up high school rivals, lie to his girlfriend and whine throughout the entire picture. It’s a real drag, and Christiansen, the hit-or-miss actor who was fine in Life as a House and Shattered Glass but uncomfortable in the Star Wars franchise, is monotone and expressionless. He simply cannot carry a film. It’s a double-whammy of a bore, with a weakly written character, weakly performed.

Ditto vacuous Bilson, effective in The Last Kiss but here saddled with a thinly conceived role that basically transports her back and forth ad nauseum to the point where she gets nothing interesting to say or do. Both are typical of carbon-copy young actors today, who try nothing special or distinguishing whatsoever with their voices or bodies, and make no real character choices beyond showing up and looking and sounding like themselves. Utterly boring.

To the film’s credit, the final reel has some truly innovative and fun effects, as David and Griffin plunge through time and space in a mano-a-mano against each other as well as the paladins, and in this extended sequence, Jumper finally dazzles, ending up in a Kosovo conflict on a note of electro-charged irony. Diane Lane also shows up in closing scene as a long-lost mother with a secret, and it’s a pretty good one.

Jumper does have one great ace in the hole, and that is Jamie Bell, having a blast with sarcasm, all squirrelly scruffiness and edges, lifting the film to entertainment whenever he shows up, which isn’t nearly enough. He struts around cockily, layers his lines with humor and has a great time acting to the hilt, opposite a blank slate.

Jumper is an inept, empty film.

-Lee Shoquist