Look Before You Leap

So, this will sound like damning with faint praise, but I saw the movie Jumper this weekend, and it mostly didn't suck. Why did I go to a movie I had such low expectations for? Well, part of it may be the Samuel L. Jackson factor -- I'm a sucker for his peculiar speech patterns and wacky hairstyles. Part of it was that I was just in the mood for an actiony, effects-laden romp.

On those counts, the film delivered fairly well. There were a lot of points on which it was fairly interesting, actually.

First, the main character was not really depicted as heroic, and that was a refreshing change. We see him discover his teleporting powers as a teenager, and he proceeds to do stupid and selfish things with it, like you'd realistically expect. Even as a twenty-something (as in the bulk of the film), he's not an example of virtue. He ignores a situation in which he could help save lives, indulges in all manner of petty (and a few not-so-petty) crimes, and sometimes uses his abilities for taking revenge. I liked that this nominally "super-hero" film did not, in fact, center around a "hero."

The scope of the film was pretty damn impressive. The film jumps (had to take that chance for a lame pun) to a half-dozen different countries, and appears to have actually been filmed in a good number of them -- pretty damn rare for a movie these days.

The action sequences were pretty good. Interesting fights, an eye-catching sequence with a car, and lots of good visual effects.

Of course, the down side of centering the story on a character that's so shallow is that the film ends up being rather shallow too. But, having come to the theater just to be mindlessly entertained, I was willing to look the other way on that. To a point.

That point came in the final act, when just about everything in the movie went terribly wrong. I'll try to be vague for those planning to see it and not wanting to be spoiled. The movie sets up some pretty iron-clad rules about what can and can't be done (which you have to do in a fantasy/science fiction story), and then violates them in the climax. The main character does something we've been told can't be done. He hasn't shown any indication to that point that he might be capable of more than we've been told. And he does it under circumstances which we've seen should make it impossible. That's three strikes, and that means "you're out!"

Moreover, the movie fails to resolve the story in any way. It ultimately plays like the opening act of some trilogy or series you can imagine the writer and/or director had in mind. We don't get any closure on any of the characters, and we don't get the feeling that we've actually witnessed the end of anything.

In short, I was willing to try keeping my mind turned off to "just have fun," but mistakes in the final 20 minutes forced it to reboot. In the final analysis, despite being on board for much of the time, I give Jumper a C+.