Jumper

Not the woolly malarkey that your Nan knits, but the Doug Liman directed sci-fi romp.

I hit the flicks on Monday night to see this, a film I'd been quite eager to see after being reasonably impressed by the Trailers. I was not impressed.

I didn't realise how much i despised Hayden Christensen's acting until about 2 minutes in when he started narrating the rather flimsy "back story". His voice over was excruciatingly drawl and devoid of any urgency. His on screen "presence" carries all the charm and charisma of a festering piece of roadkill. He was terrible in the Star Wars films as well. He seems to carry the same cinematic traits as Jennifer Garner, i think I'm going to call it "Thumb Up Ass Acting". Like Garner, he seems to look so uncomfortable facially when acting that it becomes the focal point of his performance. I have honestly yet to see him in anything where his acting is actually good or even passable.

As for the supporting cast: Samuel L. Jackson what in the name of hell are you doing? This is not the place for an actor of your caliber! The man who delivered perfect performances as Jules Winnfield (Pulp Fiction) and Zeus Carver (Die Hard With A Vengeance) should not be rotting away in a film like this. His character was terrible and the dialog awful. Rachel Bilson was nauseatingly one dimensional as well. She was clearly only there to attract the seething hordes of teenage male O.C fans and they were rewarded with: a brief shot of her in a pair of jeans and a bra. Nice work Liman? She's not a terrible actress at all and i really hope she is appalled by her role in this film. The actress who played her character in the opening 10 minutes of the film (AnnaSophia Robb) was much better and if they'd developed the character better over the film we might have seen the more interesting side of her talents rather than her being wasted as a token piece of skirt. I don't even know what to say about Jamie Bell's performance other than if anyone can tell me what accent he was trying to achieve, please let me know. Yes, you did Billy Elliot. Bravo.

As for the film itself. The story was so unintelligible that i honestly don't know exactly what the point of it was. It was the sort of throw away short attention span nonsense that i just really can't bring myself to dig deeper into. Maybe that's the intention though as if you started to over analyze the story itself it would be riddled with bizarre plot holes and continuity lapses. I felt no affinity for the characters at all. The script was abysmal and it lacked the sharp wit that should be expected in a sharp, modern Sci-fi action thriller. The special effects were uninspiring as well. With the techniques that are currently available in CGI (used to great effect in things like 300) this film came off as more CBBC mid-day schedule than box office and with a reported budget of $85m that really isn't good enough.

I can't even attribute my dislike of this film to the genre as i generally enjoy films of this type on some level at least and i don't expect them all to be overtly intellectual either. After all, everyone enjoys the odd explosion or fast paced, well choreographed fight sequence.

I can't think of any good reason to go and check this film out at all but I'm loathed to say avoid it completely.

Buddy
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