DVD : Jumper [2008]

Rating: - jump.for her love.
loosely based on a series of books by steven jay gould, this is an action/science fiction movie, and first in a proposed trilogy telling one long story. David is a high school loner who pines for a female classmate. then one day caught in a life or death situation he finds he has the natural ability to teleport from place to place. leaving people thinking he's dead and making plenty of visits to bank vaults to get money, he's able to set himself up in a nice life as an independent world jumping playboy.

but only then years later does he discover that he's not the only one who can do this, and there's a secret organisation out there who target those who can. on the run and trying to get together with his long lost sweetheart only an uneasy alliance with a more experienced jumper called griffin might save the day. but will he go as far into the war between jumpers and the organisation as griffin has?

not a movie with any great depth, just an attempt at a decent piece of action entertainent. and to set up a franchise. it just about succeeds on both counts. hayden christiensen does bring a certain vulnerability to the role that means you can just about relate to his character [looks like a few other reviewers disagree with me on that, but to each their own]. rachel bilson and samual l jackson do their best with slightly underwritten roles as the love interest and the chief bad buy. but jamie bell livens up the film as bad boy giffin with an immensely appealing and entertaining performance.

not a great movie, but not a bad start to the franchise. hopefully there'll be a sequel that can build on this.

the dvd extras are as follows:

a commentary by the director, the writer/producer, and another producer

jumping from novel to film: a documentary about the origin of the story in book form and it's transition to screen. quite an interesting watch in regards to what it says about future films and the writer's views on books being turned into movies.

making an actor jump: a short and quite interesting feature about the special effects involved in the teleportation scenes

six deleted scenes. the first five all are quite good character moments that flesh things out, but were clearly cut for pacing reasons. the last is a neat little epilogue showing what happened to one character whom we last see in a bit of a jam. a fun little scene.

jumping around the world: a short but decent feature about the locations used

jumper: exposed. a long documentary about the making of the film. rather than adopt the usual structured documentary format for these it instead shows lots of footage of the film in production from day to day of the shoot. quite fascinating stuff as a look at the movie business. although be aware there's a lot of strong language in it. and that it only makes a cursory mention right at the start of the fact that the two leads were recast after shooting had been going on for a few weeks.

david's story. an animated graphic novel, telling of the main characters quest to find out more about his mother. the animation is a bit basic but the voice acting is quite good and as a story it's not bad, adding a little more depth to the main character.

previz: future concepts. a cgi storyboarding of a rather spectacular fight scene. definitely not from this movie it's presumably something that might air in one of the proposed sequels.

coming soon: trailers for the movies juno and be kind, rewind.

the only language tracks and subtitles on the disc are in english. no other languages are available.

as a movie 7.5/10 but the decent extras push the dvd up to an 8/10

---

Rating: - Disappointing........Wait for the sequel
Let's get this straight riht away. Jumper is popcorn fluff. It is a lazy movie with lazy plotting and lazier dialogue. Asan action movie it takes itself far too seriously whilst having little else to support it other than nifty special effects (which are fantastic). There are some good points. The jump effects are brilliant and the fight scenes are pretty pleasing to watch. Jamie Bell is on fine form and should really have been given a bigger role. He is colourful where Christensen is bland, peppering the action with acerbic wit and snappy quips, and generally carrying the movie whenever he's in a scene. Unfortunately the positives end there. There is little character development and we just don't care about Christiansen's character. It might have worked had he and Bell swapped, but unfortunately the team behind this went for aesthetically pleasing American plank over fine British acting talent. Shame. Rachel Bilson doesn't really have much to do except stand around pouting in much the same way as she did on the OC, and Samuel L Jackson's contribution is undermined due to horrible writing cliches and 'big impact lines' that just sound cheesy and forced. If there is a saving grace it is that the movie is so obviously geared towards a sequel that a second movie might well be better. I can only hope that it is.

---

Rating: - This could have been great
This could have been a great movie. Original, and well conceived, but let down by the odd poor performance and a really bad ending, in my opinion. Rent before you buy, otherwise you might be diappointed like me.

---

Rating: - If only i could jump
This movie is an amazing concept and i hope more than anything they make a sequel. Hayden Christensen is very good in this despite his poor acting in Star Wars.

There are quite a few things wrong with the storyline as many things are just not explained to the viewer. The reason i give it 5 stars is because it is a fantastic film to watch and i love the concept of being able to teleport your self anywhere in the world just by thinking about it. If this was possible, life would be perfect and nothing would be impossible.

I am now going to buy the books, which are quite different from the film, but have not had one bad review. I just cant get enough of this concept of self teleportation. Its Brilliant!!!

---

Rating: - BIT OF A SHOCK
I first learned about Jumper from a tv trailer, at first glance it looks amazing, at a second look it looks good. I was hezitant to go and see Jumper at the cinema after all the negative reviews circling it so i thought i'd just waut for the dvd. The effects of the film are brilliant the jumping looks superb and the areas that the film takes place really adds to the excitement. However this film has flaws. As i'm sure anyone who has watched Star Wars will know Hayden Christiansen finds it very hard to act. He whines and moans but can very rarely produce any strong feeling or emotion. Samuel Jackson is playing a character with no background but he does play what he is given well. The plot starts well but dies down a bit possibly because of the short length of the film. The ideas though and how some are dellivered are very good however. It is a film that makes you think i wish that i could jump or i wish that would happen. That is needed in a film like this and as it has it, IT MAKES THIS FILM WELL WORTH A WATCH.