"Jumper" is one of those films that feels like it was a marketing strategy before it was a script. Or maybe it was one of those films where they had a cool new special effect and just needed to throw together something resembling a story to showcase it in. Or maybe it was both: create one shot of star Hayden Christensen teleporting and then insert it into local shots pitched at each market where the film opens. (Hell, they even have a trailer with Christensen materializing in the lobby of the Toho cinema in Roppongi Hills.)
At any rate, "Jumper" doesn't seem like anything that sprang from an urge to be creative, tell a good story or create a world of fantasy. It has three screenwriters credited — never a good sign — and it never ceases to amaze me how so many people are needed to make something so derivative, so formulaic, so intent on being a McMovie.
"Jumper" is a textbook case of making a popcorn flick for the age 13-20 male demographic. Have a hero who's a bit of a nerd, or at least unpopular in high school, and throw in the girl he pines for and a bully who taunts him. Wish-fulfillment comes when he discovers his superpowers allow him to bed the girl and beat the bully. Make sure there's an adult authority figure who will tell him "You can't" and "You're no different." Have the hero kick the adult's ass and prove he can and he is. Throw in some Oedipal urges, lots of wall-smashing fights and gratuitous destruction of buildings and cars. Make sure you use plenty of CGI and edit everything so it's cut fast enough to make even an ADD-diagnosed kid dizzy — won't notice the plot holes then.
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