"Jumper" is one of those movies where somebody had a relatively decent idea and then fucked it up so bad that nobody will be able to explore that idea ever again. In this case, the massive screw-up was courtesy of director Doug ("Swingers") Liman, whose solution to the fact that he's messed up teleportation for any other filmmaker is to come out with "Jumper 2", which will show up in a theatre near you in 2011 or so.

Jumpers like David Rice (Hayden Christensen) and Griffin (Jamie Bell) have the ability to teleport anywhere they want. They are hunted by Paladins like Roland (Samuel L. Jackson), who believe that Jumpers have powers that only God should have, so they kill them. Paladins have invented neat, little weapons that are sort of like electrical netting that make it impossible for Jumpers to teleport. This battle has apparently be raging for hundreds of years or since the dawn of time or something.

Here's the thing: the Jumpers should have wiped out the Paladins long ago. I mean, shit, just as an example, back in the 1800's the Jumpers could have teleported all the Paladins to southern Argentina and left them there. If they came back, they could just do it again until the Paladins got the message. If they didn't get the message, they could take them to Antarctica. They could dump them in the middle of the ocean. Whatever, you know?

There seems to be this conceit that Jumpers are good and Paladins are bad and Jumpers would never kill Paladins, which is really stupid. Paladins are colossal assholes trying to kill you. What do you do? You fight back, of course. Griffin fights back by teleporting a moving bus into the desert and trying to run Roland over with it. Couldn't he just grab a pole and teleport right in front of Roland? Anyway, it all doesn't make much sense. If I could teleport, these Paladins wouldn't seem like much of a threat to me.

That all being said, Liman misses a perfect opportunity to have fun with the whole Jumper lifestyle. We watch David rob a few banks and get a few dates, but it's all pretty lame. Nicholson Baker wrote a novella a number of years ago called "The Fermata" about a guy who could stop time. A lot of his leisure time was spent walking into women's bathrooms while they were bathing. I'm just saying, it might have been more interesting to see how David spent his time instead of making up this crappy good vs. evil story that wreaks of "Highlander", among others, something fierce.

It's also worth noting that Liman seems like a pretty smug bastard on the DVD extras. He talks about his process, which involves lots of instant creativity. Later, we see him parading around in a beret (at least, I think it's a beret. It's one of those French hats that hangs off the side of your head and makes you look like a pompous dickweed).

Anyway, the whole process thing sounds great when your movie works. When it fails miserably, as it does here, your "process" and your pompous hat make you look like a complete and total moron.