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Liman's Jumper Gets Lost in Translation |
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Written by BARRY BRECHEISEN
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Tuesday, 17 June 2008 |
I’ve been a fan of director, Doug Liman since 1996’s Swingers. You’re probably a Liman fan too and you don’t even know it. Whether it’s Swingers, Go, Mr. & Mrs. Smith or of course first The Bourne Identity movie, Liman has delivered solid films for over a decade now. He’s one of those directors that I’ll see the movies just because his name is on it. Jumper, that came out earlier this year, was one of those movies that the premise along with Liman’s name, made me want to see the film. I unfortunately never made it to the theater to catch it. Well if you are like me, then never fear for it’s just been released on DVD.
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Jumper
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 Entertainment
 Art
 Special Features
Directed by Doug Liman
Written by David S. Goyer, Jim Uhls, Simon Kinberg
Starring Hayden Christensen, Rachel Bilson, Samuel L. Jackson, Diane Lane
Rated PG-13
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Jumper centers around David Rice (Hayden Christensen), who as a teenager learns he can teleport or “Jump”. Once learning of this talent, David leaves his mediocre life of Ann Arbor, Michigan with his alcoholic father and reinvents a new life of adventure. A life that consists of spending his days jumping around the world and living like a king with the help of some stolen money from banks. Even with his new life, David still misses his childhood love Millie (Rachel Bilson), and returns home to seek out the girl he left behind. Little does David know, but he is not the only person with this power and that “Jumpers” have existed through centuries. David soon meets a fellow “Jumper” named Griffin (Jamie Bell) who warns him of the “Paladins” that track down and kill “Jumpers.” Roland Cox (Samuel L. Jackson) is just one of the many Paladins that are soon on David’s trail and want to see his demise.
Jumper has great potential with cool special effects, but not one of Doug Liman’s finest films. It’s fun and has a lot of great ideas, some in the deleted scenes, but Jumper might be too big of a story for one film. Perhaps it would have been better executed in a mini-series or even a TV series.
Still, it’s a great popcorn film and worth seeing in the comfort of your home. The DVD is chocked full of bonus material that makes it worth your time and even reveals the potential and the ambition of the filmmakers. There’s audio commentary with the director, producers and writers. There’s a couple featurettes that cover everything the special effects to a nice long one on the filming production. The deleted scenes are nice and solid revealing other storylines they never had time to fleshed out, including the Roland Cox (Samuel L. Jackson) character. An animated graphic novel on some of the backstory of the David Rice character is cool to watch and even a “Previs” (a pre-visualization computer graphic used often by filmmakers for action sequences) that reveals potential future storylines. And if that isn’t enough, you are even given a digital copy to watch the movie on a portable device whenever and wherever you want.
Jumper isn’t a great movie but it does have its moments. I would love to see the Director’s Cut of this film some day and then re-evaluate my review. In the meantime, as they say - it’s a rental.
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