Jumper is a movie about people who can teleport. It stars Samuel L. Jackson as a white-haired religious whacko with a kickass taser-bason, and an only mildly annoying Hayden Christensen as one of the afore-mentioned teleporting guys.
There are no lightsabres, but it's still pretty cool.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0489099/
Don't expect anything epic - there isn't much of a plot, but there's plenty of great action and effects, and it's a very fun movie to watch on a rainy day.
*slight spoilers ahoy - nothing you wouldn't find in a trailer*
Basically, there are people in the world who, for some reason, manifest the ability to teleport - anywhere. As long as you've seen a place, even in a photograph, you can teleport there, along with your clothes and whatever happens to be immediately around you. Range appears to be infinite - the main character, David Rice, can go from Japan to London to New York in the blink of an eye, the only effect being a slight rippling distortion (called a Jump Scar) in the world around him, and occasionally the destruction of whatever he happens to land on, due to some wicked-cool gravity science of something.
David does what any average joe would do with this power - he teleports into banks and robs them. Eventually, he runs into trouble - he crosses paths with a group of religious zealots known as the Paladins, who are devoted to wiping out all Jumpers. They have these taser-batons and are led by Roland (Samuel), who considers Jumpers to be abominations, that "only God should have the power to be anywhere at once."
Things pick up when a second Jumper (the totally awesome Griffin) comes into the mix, and there are many amazing fight scenes involving flame throwers, teleported buses, and much incidental sight-seeing of various countries and locales around the world.
***
I liked this movie cuz they took a relatively simple super-power (teleporting is practically right there next to flying), and showed that it can be really effective if used creatively. Lots of great special effects, a simple story-line that still entertains, and some awesome characters in Roland and Griffin. The movie could very easily become a franchise (it's clear that the director was trying very hard to leave the ending open), and while it's hardly likely to reach LotR or Matrix level fame, it's a fun watch if you take it for what it is - a movie about teleporters fighting.
Anyone else see it? Like it, hate it?
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This one, though, reminded me of the first couple issues of a limited-run comic, where they set up the rules and setting before launching into the actual plot. I'm sure some people don't like the ending of this one, but honestly I'd be pretty pissed
The sequels are something that could go multiple routes: they could be like the Bourne series and rehash the same story three times, they could go the Spider Man route and angst it up more and more, or a third path that I can't think of a good analogy for.
Talk about a cash-out.
http://imdb.com/title/tt0069647/
http://imdb.com/title/tt0103568/
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No he didn't.
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Holy shit.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lightsaber_combat
Odd. The title on that link is "Lightsaber" :P
Meh.
Oh right, I forgot. Jumper's loosely based on a book for young adults written in 1992. There's a sequel called Reflex. I haven't read them. Apparently he fights hijackers, or some shit.
Makashi fo life, yo!
Yeah, saw almost every episode on Nickelodeon. Thanks for making me feel old. Anyways, I thought the ballon thingies were weird. Though I think for the teleportation to work in that series they had to use a machine similar to Star Trek's.
Also David sucked in every fight but the last one which is kind of weird how he suddenly got awsome at the end
Personally I think they should have made this into an animated series instead of a movie trilogy. But I did like it.
Science fiction seems to be running out of original ideas.
Nightcrawler: The Movie
(the ocean part)
I just wish
I thought they had to have been somewhere to be able to jump there? And that the photos were there to jog their memory of the place?
Get into a fight in New York? No problem, NOW YOU ARE IN PARIS.
They can't teleport other stuff without teleporting themselves as well, so they can't just grab someone and zap them somewhere without going along for the ride.
It seems like having been somewhere helps, but isn't required.
Also, to bedlam, my companion in seeing the movie reached the same conclusion with me, apparently a chick is guaranteed to put out if you take her across the world, if I'm to believe the movie.
Basically, if you've been somewhere, you can jump there (long jump). If you can see where you're jumping, you can get there even if you haven't been there before (short jump).
That's what I deduced from the movie.
I don't know about you but if a dude teleported me across the world in an instant i'd probably at least give him a quick HJ.
Alternatively, if it was a girl i'd definitely do my best to impregnate her ASAP.
This.
They even paint it out for you with the whole park scene. You can jump short distances to where you haven't physically been, but to go to the general area from a long distance away you need to have been there before.
The bit that threw me off was the Empire State Building. I didn't realise until about a minute later that it had been a flashback. Kinda made me feel dumb.
So he'd been to the top of the sphynx before? I haven't seen it, but from the previews I'd been given the impression that he could go teleport just by looking at a picture of a place.
I have a problem though.
Can anyone tell me why the hell no one used any guns in this movie?!?!
It isn't even as if the Paladins wanted to take the Jumpers alive! They must have spent tens of thousands of dollars or more developing their cool electro-weapons, JUST TO KILL THEM IN THE END ANYHOW! It's like that old riddle about Nasa spending billions for an anti-grav pen, and Russia just using a pencil.
And Griffin! Why the hell didn't he carry a 9mm around with him? Jump, shoot, dead. Jump, shoot dead. Rinse repeat.
It wouldn't have ended the movie too soon or anything, cause you could just give the Paladins cool looking shields to account for the fact that in the real world, people use guns!
Had they been forced to account for the fact that someone would have used a gun at some point, it might have been a better action movie.
Griffin was awesome though. He was Jumper's version of the Irish guy from Braveheart.
1)Poof behind Paladin
2)Slit Paladin's neck
3)Poof to a beach somewhere and kick back
Although I can see why the director wouldn't have had it that way. It's no fun watching 3 second encounters that are more like executions than battles.
Ten men wander down a hall in a circular formation, each holding a large shield around them. Suddenly a poof, and a bullet hits one of the shields. The men huddle closer together.
Poof, bam, poof, bam, poof poof poof bam bam bam. The jumper's teleporting all around the room, jumping and shooting. The men fire back, or shoot their electricity...
I don't know. It could have worked.
Hell, they could have evened it up by setting the movie slightly in the futre, so they could add more advanced tracking machinery...
Overall, it was worth seeing, but it seems so clear that someone with a really great idea came to a studio and said, "Hey, I have a really great idea. Wanna make my movie?" and the studio said, "Well, we got two jedis who aren't doing anything right now..."