Okay, I knew it was going to be bad, but I had to go see JUMPER.
Yeah, I'm going to compare it to the book. I know you have to take movies on their own terms because they're a different medium, but this time it's germaine.
We all had high hopes for this movie. See, JUMPER wasn't written by Michael Crichton or Stephen King or one of those other seven-figure, NEW YORK TIMES best-selling authors whose books get made into movies as a matter of course. JUMPER is firmly part of the science fiction ghetto. It was sold only in the SF section. No one outside the SF community had heard of Steven Gould, the author. It was really great having a book written by One Of Us getting done as a big-budget movie. "Look!" we could shout. "There's more to SF than Michael Crichton!"
When hopes climb high, the disappointment smashes us equally low.
As you know, Bob, the film's been getting wretched reviews, and deservedly so. The problem is in all the crap they added to it. It was stupid to add a plot with a group of people (who inexplicably call themselves Paladins) who hunt down people who can teleport, and was obviously thrown in to have an excuse for battle scenes. And to make room for this stuff, they removed everything from the book that made the story good.
In the movie, Davy is an asshole. Sorry, but there's no other to put it. He starts off with a voice-over narrating his mid-teen years in which he says, "I started out as a chump like you." Great way to get the audience on your side, guys! There's a brief moment when Davy is bullied in high school and he becomes sympathetic, but the moment his powers surface, that goes away. We pop ahead eight years, and we see Davy-the-asshole again. He jumps around the world, stealing what he wants, using his power to pick up women, deliberately ignoring people in danger who need his help, and generally living the life of a sybarite. This could still be done sympathetically, but Hayden Christensen keeps a smirk on his face and a sneer his voice the entire time. He (literally, in one case) looks down on everyone else in the world, and you want to slap him. When Roland the Paladin shows up and beats the tar out of Davy, I was ready to cheer. It was like watching a brat get a much-deserved spanking.
Then we have Millie the Girlfriend. In the movie, Millie is a nothing. She is pure damsel in distress. She does untie Davy once when he's trapped and can't teleport, but that's it. She adds nothing to the film, and the makeup and clothing designers made her look like trailer trash, for some reason. her and Davy's relationship is thoroughly unbelievable, completely lacking in chemistry, and it's clear she's only there so Davy can save her.
Davy's father is the main villain in the book (for the first half of it, anyway), and he is nasty and horrible and scary. In the movie, he's a dud. You can't even tell whether Davy runs away from him in a fit of teenage pique or because Dad is abusive. The character is murky and unclear and poorly done, unlike the novel.
And boy, do we have plot holes. In the movie, Davy teleports in and out of crowded places AND NO ONE SEEMS TO NOTICE OR CARE. It's the stupidest thing. He teleports from one end of a crowded pub to another, but no one sees. He pops in and out of airport security lines, and no one bats an eye. He teleports someone to an emergency room, and his arrival creates a big dent in the floor and sends hospital equipment flying, but there's no follow-up to this (and you never find out what happens to the character--does he live or die?). Griffin, another jumper, teleports cars, vans, and buses around, but no one seems to notice this, either. (Exactly what happened to the driver of the London bus Griffin teleports to the Egyptian desert?)
The stupidest, most asinine bit of all was the change in Davy's mother. In both the novel and the movie, Davy's mother abandons her husband and son when Davy is five. In the book, we learn she flees her husband's alcoholism and abuse, but she isn't emotionally strong enough to take Davy with her. Eventually, Davy tracks her down and tries to reconcile with her, but an unexpected tragedy interferes. It's a major part of the book's plot. In the movie, Davy's mother is only briefly mentioned and we learn at the very end (in order to set up a sequel) that she's a Paladin who will now be hunting Davy down. If the moviemakers were waiting for gasps of shock, they were disappointed--it wasn't shocking, it was stupid, and the audience sat in silence during the scene.
The screenwriters took everything out of the book that gave the story heart. Davy was one of the most sympathetic characters I've ever read in my life. That disappeared. His developing relationship with Millie was well-drawn and sweet and realistic. That disappeared. His feelings of abandonment and attempts to reconcile with his mother made for fascinating character development. That disappeared. Davy's fights with the FBI agents who were trying to capture him and force him to work for them were suspensful and action-filled. Those disappeared. What we got instead was a new plot full of holes driven by unsympathetic characters.
It was sad and horrifying to watch such butchery. Judged alone or against the book, this movie loses.
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