Sunday, March 28, 2010

Review: Jumpers blu-ray


Directed by Doug Liman, Produced by Simon Kinberg, Written by screenplay David S. Goyer Novel Steven Gould

Starring Hayden Christensen, Jamie Bell,Samuel L. Jackson, Rachel Bilson, Michael Rooker, Diane Lane


Jumpers the movie is pretty much a one trick pony. Through a misadventure on a frozen river, a teenage boy discovers that he can teleport. For the balance of the movie we are treated to a large dose of self indulgent behavior, fueled by teleporting bank robberies. Then we are treated to Sam Jackson in dyed white hair and a big ugly knife slicing and dicing other jumpers with great zeal. (oh and the director wants us to believe that this whack job is the hero?! whaaaaaaaaaaaaa?)

Ok, maybe I am being harsh. I like Samuel Jackson, and his evil anti-heroes are always fun and this outing is no different. Maybe the just sheer lack of a "good guy" made the movie difficult for me. Maybe the director is right, if suddenly you found out you could go anywhere you wanted and have anything you wanted, and as far as you know with out any consequences, what would YOU do? Exactly - especially if your a young male.


So we have a young boy who can teleport who instantly moves out, gets a seedy room and robs a bank. Flash forward, he is older, lives better, doing pretty much the same thing. No saving people, fighting crime, nope, thats fiction, this guy travels the world, stealing what he wants and screwing anything that moves.

Then Sam Jackson shows up with white hair and a cattle prod and proceeds to make the next few minutes very unpleasant (oh and the setup scene before this is pretty self explanatory.) until said jumper manages to escape. Does he run? Does he hide? Not really no, he goes to an old girl friend and goes to Rome? HUH? Where life again gets difficult. Some plot expansion here but if you havent seen the movie, I am not going to give it away. But we do find out that Jumpers are not all that unusual... So we get the obligatory "you screwed up and this is how you screwed up and I don't want to be part of your screw up. And old girl friend is now a prisoner trap by Sam Jackson who manages to almost end jumper #1 (for a movie that was trying not to be predictable it sure gets there fast)

So, jumpers fight, jump around the world, fight some more by throwing the most awesome crap at each other. Some things work out, some things don't and boy and girl go off together.

Maybe I am being a bit tough on the movie. It IS pretty frenetic and certainly is a large dose of wish fulfillment. But is is very difficult to identify with a cast of unpleasant characters. And this is no Pulp Fiction. But it does have it's high moments....I can guarantee the world's most outrageous driving sequence to date!

So, how are we set for special features? Well I have to fess up and tell you that I took a friends suggestion and got the blu-ray version and was pleasantly surprised! There are I would hazard a guess, several hours of additional material (that's if you take the director's comments into account) There is a deleted scene real, many many deleted scenes, a graphic novel section, the making of shorts based on areas on the globe. Plus some stuff that pertains to motion control furnature of all things! Oh yes, this is a cornucopia of additional material!

So how would I rate the movie? Well it's a bit too experimental for me. They tried too hard to keep everything as normal as they could except for the power of teleportation....Not sure I am sold on this idea. I really don't buy into it. Remember the Will Smith movie about the reluctant superman? I see it more in that vein. It's not a bad movie, just didnt do much for me. So, 6 for the movie, but a flat out 10 for the extras so what does that give us an average of 8? meeeeeeeh......bit high but I can live with it. It will make a fair addition to your library.

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