By Ray Pride Pride@moviecitynews.com
Jumper (2008, **)
ISN’T IT ENOUGH TO HAVE COME UP WITH A SLOGAN THAT PERFECTLY ENCAPSULATES A CONCEPT without having to go then and make the expensive, logistically unwieldy, imperfect result? Jumper: “Anywhere Is Possible.” I’d figured that if anyone could pull off the idea of characters being able to jump across space at will with any sort of panache and a bit of willful eccentricity, it would be Doug Liman, whose Go, The Bourne Identity and Mr. and Mrs. Smith are as giddily crafted as their reported production processes were tortured. There’s another reason this subject suits Liman’s profile: his ADD-OCD-OMGZ! range of interests and whims. (From a New York magazine profile: “[H]e sits with his sheepdog Jackson—for his birthday, Liman bought him some sheep.”) The dread Hayden Christiansen (Star Wars I-III) is only slightly less wooden than in earlier roles, and Rachel Bilson, tiny and wet-dark-wide-eyed, is ideal in the teen-dream role of the crush from high school that can be swept off her tiny feet. There are shreds that hint at mythology of a centuries-long battle between Jumpers and Paladins, embodied by Samuel L. Jackson, claiming to be an agent of the NSA, CIA and IRS at various times, with a platinum merkin skullcapped atop his head and a range of costumes that start at Matrix-with-a-Nehru jacket that after a while simplify into in Obi-Wan muslins. (Other cryptic allusions are equally toothsome.) Except for the incessant product placement, Jumpers plays as a very expensive episode of a kooky Komedy TV series for kidz you’ve never seen before, especially at its brisk, relentless, shocking 88-minute length. Still, there’s eyeball kicks everywhere and the immensely watchable Jamie Bell should be a star. [Ray Pride.]