Jumper Wasn't That Bad

I've read a lot of flack about Jumper recently, and having finally seen it this weekend, I wanted to weigh in. People it's not that bad of a movie. In fact, I was pretty entertained.

Maybe it was the fact that I had read so many awful reviews, on this site and others, that my expectations were at all-time low levels, but here are my impressions.

1) The story. Many of the reviews said that there is essentially no plot. And to this I can say, I see where you're coming from. There seems to be very little motivation for the movie except that Paladins want to kill Jumpers and Hayden Christensen wants to bang Rachel Bilson. Yeah, that's not going to win any awards, but it's really all you need to keep the movie entertaining and moving along at a healthy clip. In addition, the story actually does raise an interesting topic that I see this forum has addressed in the past, and is something I've always wondered: Why do superhero movies always paint the heroes to be boy scouts? I like that our "hero's" only motivation here is to steal money and get the girl. Despite the fact that I'm watching Sci Fi, it seems more real to me.

2. Hayden Christensen. Is he going to win Best Actor any time soon? Probably not. But so what? Does he reek up the screen? No. As per point number one, you're not really going to the movie to see great story and character development.

3) The special effects are really incredible, and to me well worth the 10 bucks. Aside from the special effects, there are some really fun visuals from all over the world--I'm not sure they actually went to those locations, but given that we're talking about Bourne director Doug Liman here, I wouldn't be surprised.

I'm not coming out guns blazing in defense of this movie. I just don't think it's given a fair shake. It's entirely possible that our expectations were simply too high--had Michael Bay directed this film, we'd probably all be calling it a popcorn thrill ride. But Doug Liman did it, and so we raised the bar too high. Maybe he just wanted to make a popcorn thrill ride. Or maybe he faltered trying to make a more cerebral experience. Either way, he ended up with a half-decent thriller, which is about 50% better than most of the movies out there anyways.

That's just my opinion.