'Jumper' a one-trick pony

Hayden Christensen plays the lead - a boy, who at the age of 15 discovers that he has the ability to teleport. Soon after learning of this ability, he leaves his unenviable home life and travels to New York City. He soon masters his newfound trick and begins traveling the world - that is of course after robbing a bank to procure some funds. He lives the high life for quite a few years before being detected by a secret society (led by Samuel L. Jackson) whose mission it is to find and kill all the jumpers. Action then ensues, enter the love interest, and you've got Jumper.

Doug Liman directs this film - his follow up to Mr. and Mrs. Smith and The Bourne Identity. It then follows that the movie is filled with action. He knows how to put together a good action sequence. There are some really good chase scenes and the special effects are pretty damn cool but that's kinda where it ends. The rest of the movie is pretty thin.

The movie revolves around one principle: Christensen can teleport. The film then spends the next hour and a half finding ways to exploit this trick. And that's what it becomes by the end of the movie - a trick to move the plot forward. In fact, all the plot points involve teleportation - by the time the movie wraps up, it feels a little empty. That's not to say that the movie doesn't have its' moments - especially early on when he's just getting to know his powers and then his first confrontation with Jackson is pretty cool too. The movie is just kinda a one-trick pony.

The acting is somewhat of a disappointment.Hayden Christensen is a great actor as evidenced in previous roles (in Shattered Glass to name one) but he really falls flat in this one. Maybe it was how the character was written, but he was fairly one-dimensional. Rachel Bilson (God bless her bony little self) is cute and was one of the more interesting characters - the one thing is that she's distractingly, unhealthily thin. But she did a good job with the material and was the only sympathetic character. Samuel Jackson - when he plays the villain - always plays the same character. This movie is no different. He plays a good villain, but a little range would be nice.

Now, there's been a lot of criticism in this review, but that doesn't mean that I disliked the movie because that's not true. The film just falls slightly short of what was expected. It had a really cool premise but just falls short of thorough execution.