First Hit: Could have been a really fun and interesting film but it comes off as ill acted, diffused, lacking substance and a waste of time.
I didn’t think much of Hayden Christensen’s acting in his Star Wars films and thought that maybe it was just not the right film for him.
However, this film seals the deal, he can’t act. He doesn’t put much of himself on the celluloid and it is obvious. The only thing keeping this film alive is the concept of tele-transporting and the sequences of where he goes.
David (played by Hayden) is a lost young man in high school when an event, where he almost dies, prompts him to tap an unknown power to wish himself to somewhere else. While confused about what happened to him, he tests himself and learns that he can do this without being threatened with death. With this new found power he leaves home and goes to live on his own at age 15.
He robs banks by transporting (jumps) himself inside the safe, takes the money and jumps himself back out again. We spend time watching him jump from place to place with not much care in the world. At this point in the film I got really bored.
Then we discover there are people who “hate” people who can do this "jumping" and are out to kill jumpers. No there isn’t any history or buildup to these new characters and why there is this intense hatred. This jolting introduction also brings us the understanding that there are more jumpers.
So now we have jumpers and people who hate jumpers and we never know why. The leader of the we hate jumpers group is a man named Roland (played by Samuel L. Jackson). The little we learn is that this war (between the jumpers and the jumper haters) has been going on for thousands of years. Then we get the odd twist that David’s mother is one of these jumper haters and that is why she left him and his dad when he was 5 years old. She wanted to protect him.
There is one semi bright light in this confusing film and that is Jamie Bell (who plays Griffin), another jumper. He has enough intensity for both of them and seems to have some homework about jumpers and the jumper haters.
Overall: This is one mixed up travelogue that was basically a waste of time. What is sad about this is that this could have been a good film if some real thought, writing, direction, and acting would have gone into it.