Jumper

My former GM used to give us one rule when it came to creating our Ice Space Master characters – no blinkers (teleporting psionics). We all agreed that this was a wise rule. While tempting, this psionic power was bound bound to create incredibly unbalanced game play. Always being able to go around GM imposed barriers, and to get out of a combat situation on turn 2 would mean that each adventure would have to be specially tailored to account for the presence of the jumper on the team. You would either neutralize the impact of teleportation or to make it necessary to the mission success. Which in turn translates into the blinker player having all the fun while the rest of the company is just tagging along acting as a live shield or a distraction.

Auto teleportation at will is a hell of a power, and it is actually very difficult to use both in RPG games, as well as in fiction. They either steal the show, or remain marginalized to avoid logical questions of the type “why didn’t they just ‘port there?”

Jumper is a movie about precisely that annoying character archetype – the teleporting hero. Or heroes actually, because there is more than one in this film. The mechanic is pretty standard – at least as far as this type of power goes. You can only teleport to somewhere you have been before – pictures or videos don’t work. The pesky detail of accidentally ‘porting into solid matter is totally ignored here. Instead we get an interesting concept called a “jump scar”. Apparently each jumper leaves a temporary trace after each teleportation which reveals information about where he went to. This trace can be followed by another jumper leading to many jump-chases throughout the movie. It’s a nice limiting factor that can be used to keep a jumper in check (ie. he can’t get away from certain situations), so I’ll bite.

Oh, and you need to be somewhat conscious and be able to think clearly to actually use the power. So for example, if someone zaps you with electricity you probably won’t be able to jump. I don’t know if it’s due to electromagnetic interference on your brain or just because it’s hard to concentrate. But I imagine that fast acting toxin or odorless gass of some sort would have a similar effect – or even better. It would knock out the jumper right there. Here however they are hell-bent on doing the “jumpers haet being zapped” bit to death.

This peculiar power of teleportation is rare but not uncommon in-born trait. It doesn’t seem to be hereditary, though it might be a product of some recessive gene combination that can skip generations. They do not explain how it works so this is all me guessing. It also is not new. The movie claims people could do this since the dark ages or even before that. At any given time, you will have a dozen of them on the planet – maybe less.

It also seems that their population is kept low by presence of a mysterious group called Paladins. The name is kinda lame, but it actually fits in a way. It is briefly explained to us that these guys are religious zealots who have been exterminating jumpers throughout the ages. But these guys seem neither very religious, nor very effective. They never quote any scripture, use no religious symbols and kill in a very professional, business-like manner completely devoid of ritualism or justification. You’d figure that zealots would make up some religious excuse for breaking “thou shall not kill” commandment. For example inquisition claimed that by burning witches and heretics they were purifying and thus saving their soul from damnation. But the paladins in Jumper kill in cold blood, and in fact seem to enjoy it.

In other words they act exactly like the paladins from your average D&D campaign. The religious aspect of their profession exists only in their class description but never has any significance to the plot or the story. They are really just over the top fighters who think they are better than everyone else. So yes, the shoe fits. :P

Did I mention that they pick the worst possible way to combat jumpers? How would you kill someone who can teleport away seconds after he spots you? I know how I would do it. With a sniper rifle from a long distance. If he doesn’t know the bullet is coming, he can’t jump away. Case closed.

Alternatively if you want to be low profile, surprise stabbing in a crowded area (preferably with a poisoned blade) would probably be just as effective. You just need to send an operative who cannot be identified by the target. In both cases the key to success is the element of surprise. The moment a jumper knows you are coming after him you are at a disadvantage because he moves much faster than you.

Paladins however prefer full frontal attack using electric rods as their primary weapon of choice. These weapons (I guess reminiscent of a standard issue palladin mace?) double up as heavy duty taser with a thick, sturdy cable and claw like appendage that can be used to pin the victim down to a surface. As you can imagine, these things are very distinctive close range weapons and not very effective at that. You really need to hit a jumper with 3 or 4 of these to really immobilize him. Only after the victim is subdued using these bizarre contraptions the paladins pull out a real weapon (a knife) and actually kill. It’s all overly dramatic but really ineffective. :P

I guess the whole point of this movie was to as a question: what would you do if you had the power to transport yourself anywhere in a blink of an eye? How would you use it? Would you use it for good, for evil, or for profit? What kind of person would it make you. The answer is kinda disappointing though.

David, the protagonist is shallow, incredibly selfish and spoiled brat. The brief glimpse of his life before he discovered his power lasts maybe 5 minutes. In that time we are told (but not shown) his mother left, and father was never there for him. Only that the father doesn’t seem to be a bad guy at all. He seems genuinely concerned (and rightly pissed off) when David skips dinner and comes home late at night, soaking wet. Also, later on he stands up to the Paladins and refuses to give them any information on his son. We really have no reason to dislike him. He might have a drinking problem (more than once he is shown with a bottle) but it’s really never explained in detail. We just know that David seems to dislike his old man. Maybe it’s some silly, teenage rebellion thing. Or maybe he blames him for the fact his mother left?

Initially our hero is not very popular and tends to get bullied around in the schoolyard. But this is only a momentary shortcoming. 5 minutes into the movie he discovers his power, then immediately runs away from home. He leaves his father without ever saying goodbye, he drops out of school and decides to knock over a bank. Yup, the first thing David does with his power is to steal as much money as he can actually physically fit in his small hotel apartment. Sigh…

Flash forward few years and David grows up to be a total douche bag Anakin Skywalker Hayden Christensen who looks nothing like his younger version played by Max Thieriot. By this time he lives like a king in a gigantic apartment with a walk in closet filled with cash and stolen goods. He is pretty much the epitome of a spoiled, rich playboy completely bored with life. In the morning he goes surfing in Fiji, eats his lunch sitting on top of the Sphinx in Egypt, and in the evening he goes bar hopping in London.

His life is really portrayed as if it was something glamorous – something wonderful. David raves about how awesome his life is in the voice over scenes, and he is shown jumping all over the place and having a blast. He seems very happy and content with where he is right now. But when you step back and think about this just for a second – applying real world logic to his situation you will see his life is absolutely empty and meaningless. He is a sad, lonely little man who lives alone in a huge apartment. He doesn’t seem to have any friends, he broke the contact with his family and his former school mates. He has no girlfriend, and no education and real goals in life. Aside from making a smalltalk with the receptionist/security guy in his building, and having some meaningless one night stand in London he lives a totally solitary life. No relationships, no responsibilities, no commitments. It is really hard to like his guy. He is shallow and uninteresting.

Naturally, as David is splurging around, spending stolen money and jumping in and out of public places his antics catch the eye of the Paladins. It doesn’t take them long to figure out who knocked over that first bank, and they follow the leads straight to his upscale apartment. The head paladin Roland (aka Mace Windu aka. Samuel L. Jackson) pays him a visit and gives him a royal ass-kicking. He also straight out tells David that he cannot hide – that his people will track him down. Also that he ain’t gonna tolerate any more snakes on this motherfucking plane.

I don’t believe Jackson was actually given any acting direction. I think they just bleached his hair white, put him on the set and said “do what you usually do”. Do Mace Windu! Do Snakes on the Plane! Do the tough guy routine!

Roland really has no motivations other than chasing and killing jumpers. No life, family, dreams aspirations. He doesn’t even chit-chat with his fellow paladins. He just walks on the screen, strikes a cool pose and barks orders or kicks ass. We really don’t know what makes him tick – he is just a generic bad-ass supposed to chase the protagonist for no reason.

Keep in mind our hero barely escapes from this encounter. It was a close call, and was nearly killed. He now knows that there is an organized group out there devoted to hunting him down. They have connections, resources and they specialize in dealing with jumpers. He knows he needs to stay low for a while – preferably away from major cities, where they can’t easily track him down. So what does he do? He decides to go back to his home town and look up Millie (Rachel Bilson) he girl he had crush on back in high school. Wow! Can you say bad timing? Some white haired dude with an electric mace just told you he will track you down and do anything necessary to kill you, and you lead him straight to the people you care about? Nice move David! Nice move!

Of course in the process of hooking up with his girl, he runs into the bully who used to kick his ass in school. A fight ensues and David exacts his revenge on the bully by jumping his former tormentor straight into the bank vault from which he stole all the money few years ago. The same bank that led paladins to his doorstep. WTF?

At this point I was ready to bang my head against the wall. Is he really that dumb or just suicidal? He takes a guy who knows his real name, his real address, names of all the people he ever cared about, and tons of other useful info and essentially hands him to the paladins. Hey Roland, here is a guy who knows everything there is to know about me. He also hates my guts. Why don’t you interrogate him! David is an idiot.

But that’s not all. His next move is to impress Millie and make her fall in love with him. But since he has no personality to speak off he does it by spending money. He whisks the girl away from her small town life, and takes her on a lavish, very high profile trip to Rome. Naturally they go by plane, using David’s real passport which naturally is immediately detected by the connected, and well informed paladins.

Hyden Christiansen and Rachel Bilson are actually great match – they both seem to have acting ability equivalent to that of a wooden stool. Their romance has no spark, and no chemistry. None! It doesn’t even seem like they like each other – they seem to be perpetually stuck on the “very awkward bad first date conversation” stage.

But then again, to have that spark on the screen kinda need characters with personalities. These two have none. Millie’s defining character angle is that she always dreamed about traveling, but never got to do it. Other than that, she is just a generic girl next door type, with no flaws, quirks or unique personality traits whatsoever.

The most interesting character in the whole file is probably Griffin (Jamie Bell) – the other more experienced, world weary, head strong and slightly unhinged jumper. He lives in a cave, he hunts paladins and he has a bone to pick with Roland (Samuel L. Jackson). He almost seems out of place in this movie populated by generic and and uninteresting personalities. He seems to have been deeply wounded in the past, and is currently driven by his need for revenge, his paranoia and survival instincts. He is a hunted man who has been on the run for way to long, and is fighting back knowing he can never win. It seems that Roland went after Griffin’s family and friends while trying to capture him and as result Griffin tries not to develop any close ties to anyone or anything. He probably also resents himself for allowing this to happen.

But once again, his characterization lacks subtlety. What could be and interesting, layered and complicated personality ends up being marginalized, and reduced to bare bone basics. As the movie progresses they continue glossing over his past, and hand waving away every juicy detail of his personality. Instead crack up the crazy by few notches every time he comes on the screen. We end up with him turning into a psychotic, uncooperative, borderline homicidal maniac that becomes so unstable that David is forced to fight him. Sigh…

Still, he is the only character in this whole fucking movie who has actual personality and some interesting past experiences that are not generic, small town cookie cutter crap.

As with most Holywood movies, Jumper has a silly, almost forced happy ending. Both Griffin and Roland get taken out of the picture and suffer a fate unknown. David and Millie live happily ever after, enjoying the care free life in a way only an incredibly rich and incredibly reckless jumper could afford. Paladins step off for a little while but still remain a threat (lying groundwork for the sequel naturally). It is a triumph of the generic – and a celebration of a shallow, and incredibly empty existence of an under-educated petty thief with a cool special power.

David, learns absolutely nothing. The overall message of this movie seems to be that if you are gutsy and you try hard enough, you can run away from everything – your responsibility, your stupid mistakes, your problems, your failures. Responsibility is for chumps – true heroes live above and beyond it. :P

Jumper is throughly a disappointing movie. If you take away the special effects and the plot is so thin it barely holds together. The teleportation idea is used merely as an excuse to do flashy and dynamic chase and combat scenes. It’s a blur of pretty sceneries, explosions and contrived, badly written dialog…

Millie: “So what do you do now?”
David: “I’m in… Um… Banking….”
Millie: “Banking? Didn’t you flunk algebra?”
David: “Uh.. Oh… Um… No! Of course not!”

Groan! This is just embarrassing. But you know what is even worse? If I took the overall plot of this movie (paladins vs. jumpers) and decided to turn it into a GURPS campaign for 2-3 players, we would have a story that would have been like 5 times better and more involved – despite still being a crazy, action driven romp.

If you are planning to see this movie, please check your logical thinking skills at the door. You won’t need them, and they will actually interfere with your enjoyment of the movie. Oh, and if you ever fantasized about being able to jump the way David does, try to suppress these memories. Because in most cases your teleporting superhero persona you made up back when you were 7 years old was already much smarter, more careful and more efficient at using this power than David.

[tags]jumper, hyden christnainen, samuel l jackson, rachel bilson, movies, review[/tags]