Jumper is a film about a man who teleports to wherever he wants at any given moment. As an idea for a hero it could work quite well and short range teleportation has been used in other movies. Jumping is what they call the teleportation in this film.

We start out in the hero’s childhood, he doesn’t have a nice life. A bad relationship with both his father and a bully at school end up with him coming close to death, then teleporting to the middle of a library. Then the movie really starts.

The main character is called David Rice (played by Hayden Christensen) and he’s fairly bland. Sure, he starts out with a bad life but he gets a superpower and does whatever he wants yet he never comes across as joyful or pleased about his new situation, even when he’s interacting with his woman.

The villain’s of this story are called Paladins and are led by a man named Roland (Samuel L Jackson). With the actor here we can see something good coming but they don’t really use him. He doesn’t get much screen time or chance to develop his character beyond ‘I’m a killer and I’m scared of Jumpers’. They could have put anyone in this film for similar effect.

The actual Jumping ability is never explained in any real detail, we know it goes anywhere and that it can move water at the start of the film. We see later that other things like people, cars and buses can be moved but there’s little to no origin for the ability. Some people can just do it.

Yes, some people. Rice isn’t alone in being a Jumper, he joins up with someone that seems like he has a more interesting story to tell. Together they take on the Paladins that’re hunting them and end up squabbling with each other.

Jumper has an interesting superpower and a story of a type of people being hunted, it’s a good concept. However with bland characters, weird flow and not using anything to its full potential I can’t recommend this one. It’s not fun, it’s not dark and for a movie about a guy with superpowers it’s not enjoyable.