There are many reasons why Jumper isn't a good movie, but not all of them begin with Hayden and end in Christensen. The first one, two, and three reasons do begin (but unfortunately don't end) with Hayden Christensen, though, so I suppose we might as well start there.
Christensen is David Rice, a lazy 20-something New York City bachelor endowed with the ability to teleport - that is, "jump" - at whim, usually into bank vaults or London pubs. (Apparently the Big Apple's club scene doesn't do it for him.) Teenage David discovered this ability out of necessity one snowy winter's day when, after falling through a hole in an ice-covered lake, he almost drowns. Luckily, thanks to some genetic or cosmic or spiritual or maybe even Libertarian anomaly, he narrowly avoids a fatal case of angst-ridden drowning by teleporting into an Ann Arbor public library. Teenage David is shocked and disoriented, sure, but what really gets his knickers in a bunch - besides almost dying, of course - is that of all places to teleport to, why a library?
Max Thieriot, who plays teenage David, does a decent job with his limited description, and thus provides our first Christensen-related reason why Jumper isn't a good movie. Max equals human, Hayden equals piece of driftwood. He almost has the looks, the wardrobe, and the smirk of an action something-or-another, but he suffers from the same shortcomings as do fellow wannabes like Paul Walker: can't act, and, even worse, isn't cool. Rachel Bilson of TV's extinct The OC follows Christensen's lead and floats right past interesting for "at least it's a paycheck" beach as the movie's love interest. Their sex scene is largely comprised of her taking her shirt off, and then Christensen trying to get her leather boots off. Needless to say, the enthusiasm in their "passion" is lacking. Director Doug Liman (oh, how the The Bourne Identity has fallen) would have done far better by lending the 90-minute running time to a rival jumper played by Jamie Bell, a Brit who even when sleeping is probably more charismatic than Christensen.
The second reason that Jumper isn't a good movie lies squarely on the shoulders of the story and its characters, but we might as well blame Christensen. (After all, it's his own fault he went from something like Awake - the awake-during-surgery bore with Jessica Alba - to snoring.) Nothing that goes on in this mess makes any sense at all, and any consideration of genuine wonder or awe flies out the window quicker than Christensen after the Razzie nominations. Most movies, even ones that are filled with plot holes, have some measure of coherency; Jumper is more like one gigantic plot hole with a little bit of coherency duct-taped on for good measure.
We learn that there are many of these "jumpers" around, who for centuries have been at war with their sworn enemies, called "paladins." Paladins, who wear horribly outdated Matrix-knock-off Halloween costumes from Wal-Mart, seem to have the upper hand in this mighty battle of the titans. They have these nifty things that shoot weird stuff and fancy headsets that glow in the dark and Samuel L. Jackson's crazy white haircut and … well, besides Mr. Jackson (and his crazy hair), their other assets are rather ambiguous and, lame. For his part, Jackson yells a lot, looks angry, and, in general, does his whole "thing" quite well. (Following an almost head-on collision with a doubledecker bus, I'm pretty sure he shouted that he's a "badass motherf-r.") But the filmmakers are overly eager with Jackson, and he pops up for no logical reason in the first 15 minutes. Actually, nearly every single character is introduced pointlessly early, to the point where the only person we don't meet right away is Diane Lane (yes, how the Unfaithful have fallen) and she barges in for 30 seconds, literally, and then leaves again.
The third reason that Jumper isn't a good movie (if you think I'm repetitive, wait until you see the movie) results from the discrepancy between its nifty special effects and the boringness of everything else. Some people worry that CGI is going to replace actors, but in Christensen's case, we only hope we should be so lucky. Visually, the teleportation takes its cues from the edgiest in technical editing, imagery, and sound; the jumps look exciting, sound exciting, and, indeed, provide the film's only excitement. It's a sad day when a bunch of postproduction whiz-kids sitting behind computer screens generate more enthusiasm than Rachel Bilson in her underwear. D-
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