Jumper

[R4L]

Has anyone seen the film yet? I watched it yesterday and thought it was pretty average. I liked the idea and all, but they didn't push it enough. There isn't much action in it... but what I did see was pretty good.

Discuss please.

[Nostradamus]

It was certainly a good movie and a good concept. I think it should have been longer. The exposition and background was long (and deservingly) and so the main plot didn't have time to develop and was maybe a little rushed. Had the movie been longer there would have been proper time for the background and time for a slower developing plot and more action. I'd like to know more about the origins of this phenomena of the Jumpers and Paladins, what's their origins? how does Jumping happen?  why are the Jumpers usually evil?  How could a Paladin mother a Jumper?  Too many questions left unanswered.
Could a sequel that might explain that be in the horizon?
There could be more action as you say if the movie was longer but I don't think you should be disappointed with the amount of action, because this shouldn't be a generic action movie, this movie is mainly about its unique plot and too much action would hurt the plot's strength. To me it's more interesting what else did he do with this power and the question I wrote above then a few more kicks and jumps and car scenes etc. For me there was another action. If the movie was longer it could have more action alongside better development of the plot, but the action parts aren't the main parts.

One thing that was bad in the plot was that

Spoiler

his mother said he was 5 year old when he first Jumped and then she had to kill him or leave him. Yet in the movie's starting scene when he jumped for apparently the first time he was much older than 5 and it's apparently the first time because of how shocked he was when he ended up in the library. I reckon he would remember it if he done something as amazing when he was 5 until that point he jumped from under the ice. And how come for so many years between that first jump at age 5 and that jump we see in the drowning scene, no jump has happened?  seems absurd

[close]

[InCreator]

I didn't like the movie that much. The start was quite cool, like kid with cool ability robbing banks and living well and so. It would be cool movie, if through whole movie, the protagonist would have stayed teenage and invented all kinds of tricks with his found ability.

Sadly, "they" had to ruin it.
At the moment that awful, unsympathetic female entered storyline in their adulthood, everything went downfall.

Paladins? Paladin killer? How can such a brilliant idea: human teleportation could be ruined so badly?

Add a load of plot holes and fact that the kid never came to an idea of teleporting into military warehouse for weapons or something like that, thus causing long, pointless battles with so-called "paladins".

Not a bad thing to pick up from discount DVD's rack, but I won't suggest spending money and hope on cinema.

Ah, and I hated this broad.

[R4L]

It was certainly a good movie and a good concept. I think it should have been longer. The exposition and background was long (and deservingly) and so the main plot didn't have time to develop and was maybe a little rushed. Had the movie been longer there would have been proper time for the background and time for a slower developing plot and more action. I'd like to know more about the origins of this phenomena of the Jumpers and Paladins, what's their origins? how does Jumping happen?  why are the Jumpers usually evil?  How could a Paladin mother a Jumper?  Too many questions left unanswered.
Could a sequel that might explain that be in the horizon?
There could be more action as you say if the movie was longer but I don't think you should be disappointed with the amount of action, because this shouldn't be a generic action movie, this movie is mainly about its unique plot and too much action would hurt the plot's strength. To me it's more interesting what else did he do with this power and the question I wrote above then a few more kicks and jumps and car scenes etc. For me there was another action. If the movie was longer it could have more action alongside better development of the plot, but the action parts aren't the main parts.

One thing that was bad in the plot was that

Spoiler

his mother said he was 5 year old when he first Jumped and then she had to kill him or leave him. Yet in the movie's starting scene when he jumped for apparently the first time he was much older than 5 and it's apparently the first time because of how shocked he was when he ended up in the library. I reckon he would remember it if he done something as amazing when he was 5 until that point he jumped from under the ice. And how come for so many years between that first jump at age 5 and that jump we see in the drowning scene, no jump has happened?  seems absurd

[close]

About his first jump:

Spoiler

Maybe he experienced some kind of trauma or pain that kept him from remembering? Again, not explained enough...

[close]

The Paladins vs. Jumpers idea was actually pretty cool. You have Paladins, who are religious fanatics according to Rice's friend, who ironically kill Jumpers to stop them from hurting people. This got me thinking that there could be different types of Jumpers, or maybe a defect that makes Jumpers go hostile, or something.

Actors were the worst part. Hayden was an OK choice, but Rachel Bilson seems out of place IMO. Samuel L. Jackson and Jaime Bell stole the whole show however. I loved their parts. Hayden's partner in the movie (who's name I cannot remember) has some funny and witty dialog. He knows more about the jumps, the paladins, everything a Jumper should know.

Roland was pretty vile. Besides, it's Samuel L. Jackson... what's not to like?

[Nostradamus]

Add a load of plot holes and fact that the kid never came to an idea of teleporting into military warehouse for weapons or something like that, thus causing long, pointless battles with so-called "paladins".

You missed a VERY important point - the Jumper can only jump to a place he sees or has seen and has memory of. That's why all the pictures in his room. He can't just Jump to a military warehouse cos he never seen it.
There were plot holes but this wasn't one.

Now I too would like to see what more he would do with that power, but what you are suggesting fits a TV series, where in each episode he does something new with his power or something, this was a movie and it had to have a point, it couldn't be just about this kid who has a power and differnet stuff he can do with it with no big plot point. Enter the Paladins. The problem as is I said the whole thing wasn't explained properly.

R4L, no need to quote my ENTIRE post.
I thought about what you said about the first jump and I can accept that but still too many years have passed without another jump, I don't buy it.
And about the actors yeah the girl wasn't brilliant but the rest were good. The actor who played the girl when she was young was acually much better than the actor who played the adult girl and it showed. Also they were looked nothing alike.
I don't think there are as you say "different kinds of jumpers" cos Samuel L Jackson pretty much says they are all evil and "don't you get it? you're not the hero, you're not the good guy" and the other Jumper is a bad guy basically and the mom certainly didn't look like a fanatic, and the protagonist always tryed to prove he's not evil. I didn't get the impression the paladins were crazy evil fanatics who hate Jumpers for no good reason, I got the impression they were right about the Jumpers' general evilness and only the hero maybe good but he wasn't totally good cos he did rob banks, so basically he used his power to do crimes, evil intentions or not. Yes, SLJ was pretty obsessed with his religion "only god should have this kind of power" but it doesn't mean all paladins are religious. You have to agree the potential havoc this power can bring is enough reason to not allow anyone to have it. Anyone with this power sooner or later will use it to do steal, kill, and whatnot. And even if not great havoc and damage could happen even not on purpose by a Jumper, like the guy who tryed to jump with a building. The fact is the first thing the protagonist did with his new power once he learned to control it is steal lots of money. The FIRST thing. So the Paladins motivations is to prevent crime and havoc, not because of religion.

[Emerald]

I don't like jumpers. They're itchy. I much prefer to wear a  double-layered t-shirt if it's nippy outside...

[Stupot]

Haven't seen it all yet, but the benefit of working in a cinema is that you get to catch bits and bobs here and there.

Must admit what I've seen so far of Jumper has looked visually pleasing, but too tame for a movie of this kind.  I think they should have aimed it for a more mature audience.  It's a 12A in the UK which means any kids can see it as long as they have an adult with them.  The result is little more than 'Matrix meets Sliders'.  It could have been a much darker, more mature film, and probably would work better for it.

[Emerald]

It could have been a much darker, more mature film, and probably would work better for it.

Exactly. Why have Sammy-J if you're not going to let him call someone a mothafucka...?

[InCreator]

Add a load of plot holes and fact that the kid never came to an idea of teleporting into military warehouse for weapons or something like that, thus causing long, pointless battles with so-called "paladins".

You missed a VERY important point - the Jumper can only jump to a place he sees or has seen and has memory of. That's why all the pictures in his room. He can't just Jump to a military warehouse cos he never seen it.
There were plot holes but this wasn't one.

I didn't say THAT was. But emphasis was more on "something like that". How about gun store?
Paladins felt really weak against jumpers. I mean, "I can teleport through time and space. What can you do? Fire tazer?"
And other way too: since jumpers were human by all standards, paladins could simply use bullets. Bullet speed conquers human reflexes most of times, right?

What I mean is that this all was stupid and not very well written. Teleportation puts immediately "sci-fi" tag onto a story. Why stop there? If writer had crazy idea like this, why not go further and maximize creativity on teleportation issue. For example, gaining speed through rapid teleporting to give a good punch in one scene looked really good... But how about Orange Box and Portal? Why not gain speed by teleporting into sky, falling, and putting momentum into punch by teleporting just before hitting ground? Or anything else like this? There's maybe hundred things I could add if I had to write film about teleporting. Other scene, they teleported a driving car. "If it moves, you can jump" or something. Why not defeat enemies - for example, by teleporting onto a highway, touch a passing car and bringing it with all its speed - infront of an enemy? Well, anything like this was missing. Really creative usage of the "power". If felt sometimes like your ordinary soap-opera with people talking all the time and throwing punches, with tiny exception that 2 people can teleport. Good action movie? Nah.

As I said, by only robbing banks and taking exotic trips, protagonist felt a really really creativity-poor teenager. And, ahem, where's sex? If I could teleport as a teenager, well...  :

Then again, maybe it's saved for/by a sequel.

[Stupot]

Why didnt he just look at a picture of a military warehouse then...

[Nostradamus]

Pictures of military warehouses would be classified.
Anyway the real reason for him not teleporting to get guns is cos he doesn't want to kill SLJ. That's why he dropped him in egypt and left. He never wanted to kill or injure SLJ too bad cos he saw himself as a good guy. And apparently the Jumpers can teleport before a bullet hit them, that's why the palading had to catch them in the electricy nets so they couldn't move. and if they weren't and guns were effective we wouldn't have a movie, wouldn't we? Instead the movie writers chose creative ways for attacks, that's better than guns, there are guns in every action movie.
He also wouldn't drop the paladin in the highway to have a car bash him cos other people could be injured and he didn't want people to get hurt since he saw himself as a good guy.

I never said it was a good action movie, but it's a good sci-fi movie. To me the sci-fi is stronger then the action in the movie and I classify it as Sci-Fi more than Action.

[InCreator]

Anyway the real reason for him not teleporting to get guns is cos he doesn't want to kill SLJ. That's why he dropped him in egypt and left. He never wanted to kill or injure SLJ too bad cos he saw himself as a good guy.

Yeah, he's a damn pussy.
That's why I didn't like the movie.

[m0ds]

I was told, or maybe it was media persuasion, that this is one of the best films out at the moment. The trailer looks absolutely pants. I was ready to give it a go cos L Jackson's in it, but the trailer made me vom. It looks like another crappy SFX mashup. And by the sounds of what you guys are saying, it is!! Sliders 4 eva!1

[R4L]

I was told, or maybe it was media persuasion, that this is one of the best films out at the moment. The trailer looks absolutely pants. I was ready to give it a go cos L Jackson's in it, but the trailer made me vom. It looks like another crappy SFX mashup. And by the sounds of what you guys are saying, it is!! Sliders 4 eva!1

I still think you should see it.

[InCreator]

Yeah, as saying here goes, "your own eye is the king".
It wasn't that bad. And imdb score of 6.1 (last time I checked) usually goes for "watchable".

Watchable it is. Nothing to write home about, though.

[Ryan Timothy B]

I thought it was a good movie.  Probably a 7 out of 10, but the idea was amazing.

I'm pretty sure the Jumper HAD to be at the jump site before being able to jump to it, and not just from a photo.  But I can't see him visiting the pyramids just to make it his jump site.  So perhaps you're correct that a photo taken is considered a 'new jump location' -- but to me is stupid, because if you took a photo of your backyard, is my body/brain/power going to know where this is?  So that's why I believe it had to be a place he has visited (or has seen with his own eyes), like the Empire State building, when he visited it as a child.

But it's not like traveling would take very long, you would just have to teleport yourself like 200ft each second to get somewhere VERY fast, until you get to a new jump location.  I think the photos are just memory references.  I don't remember all the places I've been, but once I looked at a photo, I'd remember immediately.  That's why Samuel said "we have all his jump locations".

Now the part of when he was 5 years old being his first 'jump', do you really think he would have believed it?  It was probably just a 20ft jump, him running after a ball and then he jumped to be arms length to it.  At 5 years old, I know I wouldn't believe it, especially if his mother was there to see it.  She would have lied and said he blacked out.

I believe jumpers are all bad because, truthfully, with power like that, who wouldn't abuse it?  Are you telling me you are still going to have a full time job, because stealing is bad?  Hell no, I'm robbing this bank and that bank.  If you could go anywhere at anytime, you would feel invincible and feel as if you were a God.  Tell me if some big guy gave you an evil glare, normally you would look away cause you don't want your ass kicked, but with those powers you'd stare him in the eye.  What if the big guy went over to punch your face in, your not going to just teleport safely home and say "oh forget it".  You're going to teleport behind his ass and push him into the ground, or something along those lines (or teleport him to the edge of town so he has to walk back.  Or in the worst case scenario, kill him or severely hurt him.).

Overall I think the movie had amazing potential that they didn't take advantage of.  I'm hoping for there to be a sequel, and hoping they don't show much of the 'love interest' as they did in this one.

EDIT:  Actually I was thinking about this at work, I forgot about the scene where Samuel was asking for the names of the safety deposit box owners saying the person that robbed the safe had been in it before.  And also explains why he teleported to the bathroom instead of the safe at first, cause he had a better memory of the bathroom.

[Play_Pretend]

Wow...has nobody but me read the book?

Jumper's a sci fi novel from the...90's?  I think?, and the movie hugely improves over it in *some* ways.  The book was a "teleportation during a coming of age for one teenager" book, mostly...it would've made a really boring movie in some spots.  There were no Paladins, just NSA, and the only weapon they had was a motion detector tracking-sedative-dart-launcher they built after Davy TP'd in front of them for the first time.  Davy was the only jumper in the world, and they'd never seen it before.  There was a huge deus-ex-machina plot bugger in the book, that Davy finds his mother (who just left because his drunk father beat her almost to death), only to have her immediately get bombed by terrorists a few weeks later, completely coincidentally, which gives him motivation to hunt the terrorists.  Admittedly, his fighting tricks are cool, but the plot twist is so lame.

Like, he does repeatedly drop one terrorist off the Empire State building, catching him just before the ground and dropping him again from the top.  He also found a big pit in the desert, with a pool at the bottom, and memorized a jump site by jumping into mid-air over it repeatedly.  He then grabs terrorists (and eventually, his wife-beating, drunk, abusive father, and the head of the NSA agents) and drops them from midair into the pit, so they're trapped down in the pool and the tiny sand strip around it.  And the cliff he jumps Sam Jackson to at the end of the movie is a reference to Davy's desert home, a cliff cave that he remodels and installs heating and furniture and stuff in.

He also buys a giant lexan tube, installs handles in it, and jumps it to the NSA guys, so the darts bounce off.  He jumps out, grabs a guy, jumps him to, say, Cairo, back to the tube, next guy, Athens, tube, etc.

Oh, and he can't add momentum to punches or anything...when he jumps, even if he's falling, he lands perfectly on his feet, on the ground, as if he was standing still (unless he's deliberately jumping to midair)...in the book somehow the jumps remove all kinetic and directional energy and whatnot.  He does have to stairstep-jump to higher and higher places if going to different altitudes, to accommodate for different air pressures so his ears don't pop.

In the book, he can only go places he's been before, *and* remembers clearly, hence the photos and eventually video tapes to remind him.  He uses his bank robbery money to fly to places he's never been before all over the world, videotapes them, tourists around and then TPs home.

Millie he didn't meet until he was at Sweeney Todd on Broadway, she met him in the lobby and they hit it off.

There's also no jump scars in the book...he videotapes himself, and in one frame he sees that he just goes through a Davy-shaped hole instantaneously, unless he's handcuffed to something immovable.  Plus, that bothered me in the movie...sure, the Paladins could keep one scar open.  But DUH!  Jump again and again to like 20 jump sites, and walk to the other side of the city, then jump again.  They'd never catch up.

In the end, he goes to anger counseling for his abused childhood, agrees to maybe help the NSA once in a while for real emergencies, and he and Millie stay together.  A boring finish.

[Ryan Timothy B]

I like that finish better than "i'll always let you be one step ahead of you, because I love you", that was lame.  Why would she still want to hunt her son down.
If I had those abilities, I'd definitely help out the government (only if I agreed with the request).  He'd be amazing in hostage situations, the terrorists wouldn't know whats going on until they were one by one transported to a prison cell.  That's what I was hoping to see in the movie.

[Lionmonkey]

Wow...has nobody but me read the book?

Jumper's a sci fi novel from the...90's?  I think?, and the movie hugely improves over it in *some* ways.  The book was a "teleportation during a coming of age for one teenager" book, mostly...it would've made a really boring movie in some spots.  There were no Paladins, just NSA, and the only weapon they had was a motion detector tracking-sedative-dart-launcher they built after Davy TP'd in front of them for the first time.  Davy was the only jumper in the world, and they'd never seen it before.  There was a huge deus-ex-machina plot bugger in the book, that Davy finds his mother (who just left because his drunk father beat her almost to death), only to have her immediately get bombed by terrorists a few weeks later, completely coincidentally, which gives him motivation to hunt the terrorists.  Admittedly, his fighting tricks are cool, but the plot twist is so lame.

Like, he does repeatedly drop one terrorist off the Empire State building, catching him just before the ground and dropping him again from the top.  He also found a big pit in the desert, with a pool at the bottom, and memorized a jump site by jumping into mid-air over it repeatedly.  He then grabs terrorists (and eventually, his wife-beating, drunk, abusive father, and the head of the NSA agents) and drops them from midair into the pit, so they're trapped down in the pool and the tiny sand strip around it.  And the cliff he jumps Sam Jackson to at the end of the movie is a reference to Davy's desert home, a cliff cave that he remodels and installs heating and furniture and stuff in.

He also buys a giant lexan tube, installs handles in it, and jumps it to the NSA guys, so the darts bounce off.  He jumps out, grabs a guy, jumps him to, say, Cairo, back to the tube, next guy, Athens, tube, etc.

Oh, and he can't add momentum to punches or anything...when he jumps, even if he's falling, he lands perfectly on his feet, on the ground, as if he was standing still (unless he's deliberately jumping to midair)...in the book somehow the jumps remove all kinetic and directional energy and whatnot.  He does have to stairstep-jump to higher and higher places if going to different altitudes, to accommodate for different air pressures so his ears don't pop.

In the book, he can only go places he's been before, *and* remembers clearly, hence the photos and eventually video tapes to remind him.  He uses his bank robbery money to fly to places he's never been before all over the world, videotapes them, tourists around and then TPs home.

Millie he didn't meet until he was at Sweeney Todd on Broadway, she met him in the lobby and they hit it off.

There's also no jump scars in the book...he videotapes himself, and in one frame he sees that he just goes through a Davy-shaped hole instantaneously, unless he's handcuffed to something immovable.  Plus, that bothered me in the movie...sure, the Paladins could keep one scar open.  But DUH!  Jump again and again to like 20 jump sites, and walk to the other side of the city, then jump again.  They'd never catch up.

In the end, he goes to anger counseling for his abused childhood, agrees to maybe help the NSA once in a while for real emergencies, and he and Millie stay together.  A boring finish.

I think. I've heard something about a sequel book.

[Play_Pretend]

Jumper 2: Skipper