Saved by the Bell?

I finally got around to watching Jumper, and there's a reason there's a big picture of Jamie Bell above this. He's the only reason to watch a really cool concept of a movie get lost in the execution.

You kind of get the feeling that there were some over-ambitious ideas that never really panned out.

So the actors got bored, the director handed the movie over to the special effects guys and they awkwardly set up some potential sequels with an odd, abrupt set of endings.

The part that kills me is that this could really have been something cool. The pieces were there, but it never quite gelled.

Hayden Christensen is pretty to look at, perhaps, but if I were in his teleporting shoes, I hope I would be enjoying it a lot more. Darth Vader needs to let loose a little!

Also wasted are Samuel L. Jackson as the spray-on hair villain and Diane Lane in a really forced series of cameos. Like everything in the movie, their roles were odd caricatures brought in when needed to set up really cool effects shots.

Which brings us back to the English dude above.

Jamie Bell is all grown up now, and he steals the movie. While everyone else sleepwalks their way to their paychecks, he is the only one who gets it:

Teleporting may be a bitch to survive, but damn it can be fun along the way.

I know which young actor's career I will be watching closely, and you can bet it's not the headliner here.

Darth Vader and Billy Elliot do the teleport thing

Directed by Doug Liman.

That's enough these days to get me into a movie theater.

Throw in a cool as hell trailer with people teleporting all over the place and I'm in. Not to mention a killer cast including Hayden Christensen, Jamie Bell, Samuel L. Jackson and Diane Lane.

I think we might have a cool flick brewing here...



If you don't know your Doug Liman movies, here's a primer. You've probably seen some of these already:

Swingers
The one that put Liman on the map. Guys hanging out in LA being cool.

Go
Some rip on this gem of a flick, calling it Tarantino-Lite. I call it great fun. This is a warped trio of intertwined stories that never quite lets go. I can rewatch this endlessly. The soundtrack alone was in my cd player for years.

The Bourne Identity
Matt Damon skyrockets to action stardom. Liman created the handheld "realism" that would define the blockbuster Bourne series. His casting of Franka Potente as a strong love interest proved inspiring enough to haunt everything Bourne does in the sequels.

Mr. & Mrs. Smith
Movie star romances usually equal the box office kiss of death. Not this time, Liman and Brangelina beat the odds with a fun, sexy action romp that never took itself too seriously, but seriously entertained.