JUMPER? I BARELY KNOW ‘ER!

1/2 thong (out of 5 thongs)

If I were a jumper, I would’ve jumped far away from this movie.

“Jumper” stars Hayden Christensen (a graduate of the Keanu Reeves School of Wooden Acting) as David, a guy who can, well, “jump” from one place to anywhere else in the world … I think. The plot outline on Imdb.com explains his power is because of a genetic anomaly, but I’m not sure how I was supposed to figure that out from the movie. This small oversight might have been forgivable had the movie had any other redeeming features, but alas, it did not.

The plot, such as it is, consists of David using his power to steal money so he can hang out in various exotic locales, which works out pretty well for him until he begins to be hunted by Paladins. From what I am told, Paladin means “warrior of God,” and apparently warriors of God don’t like jumpers very much. Roland, the main Paladin, is played by Sisqo, who unfortunately has not aged very well. (Correction: Roland is played by Samuel L. Jackson with weird silver hair. My bad.) There’s also a love interest thrown in there for good measure, played by Rachel Bilson, who is almost as bad of an actor as Hayden Christensen (although a certain male Release editor deems this forgivable, as that scene in “The OC” where she dresses up as Wonder Woman is enough to absolve her of all her sins).

About what felt like two days into the movie, Diane Lane shows up with a sassy new haircut to give us hope that the movie may after all have a plot that is halfway engaging, but these hopes are crushed faster than you can say “let me see that tho-o-ong.”

The main problem about this movie is that both the characters and the plot seem to be an afterthought to the (admittedly nifty) special effects. For example, there is a character, a fellow jumper (played by Jamie Bell), brought in for what was apparently meant to be comic relief. But, he is so expendable that (SPOILER ALERT! I’d much rather ruin the ending for you than let you spend money to see this awful movie) when he is left to die by David, I didn’t even realize that he was probably dead until well after the credits had rolled.

Coming from Hollywood heavyweights like director Doug Liman (of “Swingers” fame) and co-screenwriter Jim Uhls (“Fight Club”), it’s surprising that this movie made me so apathetic. Nothing in the movie is adequately explained, but it gives you so little reason to care that after a while you just stop asking questions. And only then can you take it for what it is: A really expensive, good-looking movie that tries, but fails, to dazzle you enough that you don’t notice that it is apparently being made up as it goes along.