Jumper is described by my local bus station adverts as “Bourne meets The Matrix” - and so I decided to see it, since both of these films are to my taste. The storyline is actually like this - there’s a lot of capital city hopping (Tokyo, Rome, London), like in Bourne, and the idea of a minority of people (the Jumpers ) being hunted by a group of agents (the Paladins). Unfortunately, that’s as far as the comparisons go.

With films like Jumper you expect a few things as minimum - good CGI and effects, some good stunts, and some good fight scenes. You get all of those and you have a decent film. Unfortunately, Jumper fails to deliver on all of these aspects, and doesnt bring anything new or interesting to action movies. Bland acting (particularly from Christiansen) and a dull, generic plot make Jumper the most dull film I’ve seen in a long time.

I had a few issues with the films storyline. The main issue I had is that the chosen protagonist had very little to him, there was nothing endearing about the character. The other Jumper, who is introduced about 1/3 of the way into the film, should have been the focus of the movie - his past is darker and his life more adventurous, and would have made for a better film. The second issue is that Jackson had very little screen time, and his character is hardly explored.

To conclude I’d say Jumper is a pretender, it tries to do things that other films have already done. But these other films did it almost 10 years ago. However, because I really liked the idea behind the story, I’m not going to mark it as low as the written review would suggest. Its an idea they could do so much with, and I hope that a better writer realises this and a better version is released.

3/10 - a decent idea spoiled by some bad effects, writing, etc. A lazy attempt, resulting in a poor film. There are better films out there to waste your bandwidth on.