"Jumper" - Hayden Christensen, Rachel Bilson, Jamie Bell

An enjoyable movie, but falls short in a few places. I hadn't seen too much of the press on this movie going in, but I wish I had, because I would have gone to see it much sooner. An interesting premise for a movie, with good actors, great effects, and decent overall directing and execution.

Possibly Jumper's biggest problem is that it tries to be too many things at once. It executes most of them pretty well, but around the third act it starts to stretch a little far. It's an interesting (if not completely original) sci-fi premise, with the look and sound of an action movie, and the feel of a drama. There's touches of comedy and horror and even the growing genre of "teen film" too, making a movie that's apparently supposed to appeal to all audience members. The final product of all these bastardized bits and pieces is a film that ends up only accomplishing two (maybe -- MAYBE -- three) of these six goals well, attempting the rest with mediocre or entirely poor results. The story, however, holds together well, with a nonconventional structure to the story that works pretty well nonetheless, and acting and directing that are at least adequate, at best very good. If nothing else the special effects are superb.

It's really a shame that Hayden Christensen got a bad rap after Star Wars, because he's really not a bad actor. He's not on a level with Meryl Streep or Al Pacino, but he holds his own quite well with his costars -- including Samuel L. Jackson, who I felt wasn't at his best. Maybe it was the ridiculous scars and improbably white hair, but I just didn't believe him, and a character we were supposed to hate and fear became...kindof annoying. Rachel Bilson (and her young counterpart, Annasophia Robb) gave great performances as Millie, the girl-next-door and dreamer-turned-barmaid. Jamie Bell was nothing terribly special, but adequate in his role.

The bottom line is that Jumper tries to be too many things at once and falls short in the third act (bits of which felt like a desperate rewrite after bad test screenings or a higher rating), but the first two acts are very good, and if you don't go in with too high of expectations you'll enjoy the film.

Acting: 9 of 10
Writing: 7 of 10
Direction: 9 of 10
SFX: 10 of 10
Overall: 8 of 10