Jumper (**)

JUMPER

Anywhere But Here

What if Anakin Skywalker could teleport? The answer is even more banal than you guessed. Jumper sucks, man. It takes the promising idea of people having the ability to teleport and goes nowhere with it. There are two main "jumpers" in the movie, Hayden Christensen and a British guy, and they're both monosyllabic douchebags. I lost count of the number of times they said "Huh?" and "Wha?" Was that actually written in the script or was that shit they added themselves? Turns out there's a war going on between jumpers and people who hate jumpers, lead by Samuel L. Jackson. The Star Wars prequel reunion goes about as well as you think. In the Padme Amidala role is poor Rachel Bilson. She mostly has to stand around looking confused at Christensen. There are no interesting characters, no wit. The action is bland and usually incoherent. There was some interesting stuff in how Jumpers can fight, involving teleporting vehicles and heavy objects at their enemies, but it's not done particularly well. I kind of dug how upon learning he could teleport, Christensen embarked on a career as a bank robber, using his powers to get rich, and quick. That's a more logical thing a high school dropout with superpowers would do than put on tights and fight crime. But Jumper immediately committed two of my biggest pet peeves in movies: 1) voice over narration for no good reason and 2) casting younger versions of the characters in flashbacks who look absolutely nothing like the lead actors. Does AnnaSophia Robb look like a young Rachel Bilson? No. Does this kid look like young Darth Vader? No, he doesn't. Why didn't they hire this kid instead?