Saturday, January 24, 2009

MOVIE: "Jumper" (2008)

Several years ago, I read the original book that this movie is based on - "Jumper" by Steven Gould. Originally published in 1992, it was re-released by Tor books as a movie tie-in in 2007. I haven't read the re-release to see if anything has changed, but I liked the original story very much. So I was excited to add the DVD to my NetFlicks queue.

I was rather disappointed in the movie, though. The special effects were great - the visual effect of the "Jump" was good and the location shots spectactular. But overall the movie was shallow; the love interest was tepid and there was little of the moral delima that the original book explored. There was a totally unnecessary car theft scene in the middle that seemed a bit out of character for Griffin in the first place and only accomplished two things - that Griffin can 'jump' an entire vehicle and the boys shared the experience of the Paladins murdering their parent(s). The director should have saved the special effects budget from that entire scene and used the time for some real character developement!

I'll still give it a 3 star rating, but just barely, maybe 2.5.

1 comment:

Zandra said...

I was not terribly impressed with the movie either, but it sounds like the book will be worth reading.