Jumper (2008)

Director Doug Liman, who also showed his skills with The Bourne Identity, is on top of his game here with his Jumper and has created one of the most exciting cinematic rides i have ever witnessed in my whole life.

Liman's take on a young man with a certain supernatural abilities is a genuinely interesting take on a superhero myth and it's themes. Like he did with his fantastic The Bourne Identity, Liman also turns his main character here into sort of an anti-hero. This is a flawed young man who has lost his moral while using his powers to only live rich and selfish life. David, played here by Max Theriot and Hayden Christensen, is very interesting as an character. Beneath his surface is a emotionally very wounded and shy boy who has been always a bit loner and bullied.

One of Liman's greatest gifts as a filmmaker has been always his ablity to create such an interesting charaters and David is no different when it comes to complex characters. Credit must also be given to Jamie Bell's Griffin who is an complete opposite from David with his lifestyle and attitude. These characters and their scenes give this film intreresting tension and also serves an fantastic dialogue for these young actors to work with. There are interesting sidecharacters here too and their involvement to the story is crucially important. Actors like Rachel Bilson, Samuel L. Jackson, Diane Lane and Michael Rooker all do wonders with limited screentime and ultimately succeeds in creating enough depth to their characters for us to care about their fate. In Liman's films there is very rarely pointless or hollow characters or even remotely average perfromances. He is genius with his actors and pulls the best out of them.

Once again Liman handles his material with enormous style and proves that he is also by far one of the most technically gifted directors around right now. He begun his career with more independent productions like Swingres and Go, but since then he has moved into bigger productions like The Bourne Identity, Jumper or most recently his political masterpiece Fair Game. In my books Liman is one of the greatest director alive and i love the way how he is still capable of mixing his more artistically impressive aesthetics into a bigger studio productions like Jumper or The Bourne Identity. This film might sound like a typical superhero story on a paprer but it is far from it. Jumper is emotionally gripping and morally complex character study. It is also a heart pounding adventure film that stands as a greatest possible example of a film of it's kind.

It would be a crime not to mention some of the fantastic technical feats of this film. First of all, along with with cinematographer Barry Peterson, Doug Liman has created one of the best looking films ever made. Liman has often worked as a cinematographer and cameraoperator in many of his own films and he seems to be very precise about the images and style he uses. His trademark handheld urgency can be seen once again here and it brings a certain fresh look into a thrilling action scenes. John Powell has also composed one of his greatest, or maybe even the greatest, scores into this film. Powell's music succeeds in being a mix of playful elements, more emotional themes and some tense moments with massive orchestral sequences thrown in it. This is quite possibly his finest moment as a composer so far and he has done many great scores during his career as a film composer. Credit also goes for Weta's fantastic special effects that at times even outdoes best work by legendary Industrial, Light and Magic studio and their work for the director as great as Steven Spielberg.

Surprisingly many viewers and critics has complained that there are too many loose ends and that it all feels like a set up for something bigger. What ever the intentions of Liman or the producers are, Jumper is a perfect example that great stories do not always need a closure or a clean tidy ending. If it is going to be first part of a bigger storyline then this is a one brilliant game opener as a film and i am very interested to see where this story is going next, but it also works perfectly on it own. And to be honest i myself am very pleased with this film just the way as it is. There is no possible way to make this kind of film any better.

Doug Liman is a kind of director genius who knows exactly how to add more artistic touches into big films. His films has always been wonderful marriages between art and entertainment. There are only few superhero films made in last two decades that has truly impressed me and Jumper is easily the best of them all. This is a masterpiece and a one impressive rollercoaster ride as a film. Fasten your seatbelts and see this film!