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Spoiler Points for Jumper (2008) [PG-13] 90 minutes
WIP™ Scale: $11.75
DVD Release Date: 10 June 2008 (click date to purchase or pre-order)
Film's Official Website • Film's Trailer
Click to read the non-spoiler review
Click to see photos from the Premiere of Jumper
Spoiler Points:
• Little David Rice (Max Thieriot) becomes a bank robbing 'jumper'—a person able to create tiny worm holes to travel around earth simply by thinking about the place.
• Unfortunately, his mom up and disappeared on him when he was 5 leaving him with his drunk-most-of-the-time father, William (Michael Rooker). The only light in his life is Millie (AnnaSophia Robb) whom he tries to woo with a snow globe containing the Eiffel tower when a freak accident leads him to discovering his 'jumping' ability.
• So, that's when he gets the idea to 'jump' to NYC and start robbing banks for income.
• He grows up into a guy who looks like Haden Christensen who becomes a very suave surfer, bank robber who dates random women in exotic cities on a whim rather than using his powers to save people who are stranded in the aftermath of a huge flood, for example.
• After a run-in with Roland (Samuel L. Jackson) who uses some Taser-on-steroids like device to try to trap him from which he only narrowly escapes, he decides it might be time to see if Millie might still be into him. So, he goes back to his home town of Ann Arbor, Michigan and seeks her out. His old arch nemesis, Mark, fights him at Millie's bar, and ends up getting sealed in a bank vault and left to be found by police and Roland. Meanwhile, David convinces Millie to go to Rome with him, and it is here that he learns that (a) he's not the only jumper in the world, and (b)there's a whole class of people called Paladins who've been hunting and killing Jumpers for ages (including the implication that it was actually Paladins who were behind the Salem Witch trials and the Spanish Inquisition). He learns all of this in a run-in with Paladin agents and a new Jumper named Griffin (Jamie Bell) who has made it his mission to turn the war against the Paladins by hunting and killing them instead. In his mind, turnabout is fair play. So, he shows up to kill of the Paladins that are hunting David. David in turn finds himself in Roman jail as a security guard identifies him as the one she saw in the Coliseum after closing hours. Before he's charged with a crime, though, his long-lost mother appears out of no where and gives him the opportunity to escape which he does. He puts Millie on the plane alone for her own protection and tries to find Griffin to get to the bottom of what's going on. He follows Griffin's "jump scar" to his "lair" and gets no where in trying to convince him to allow him to join up in Griffin's war and to catch and kill Roland who seems to be the leader of the Paladins.
• After some convincing based on comic book lore, David gets Griffin to acquiesce and work with him to kill Roland. They joy ride around a bit in a stolen Mercedes and here David learns that he has the capacity to jump more than just himself and bags of money. Griffin can jump anything that's already moving (cars, double-decker buses, and so on).
• David knows that Roland will be waiting for Millie back in Detroit so Griffin goes to arm up and David goes to save Millie with their plan being to meet up and kill Roland. They arrive at the airport too late, Millie's flight came in an hour earlier. David finds her at home and to escape Roland, jumps them both back to Griffin's lair. Griffin is furious because he knows that the Paladins now have a device that will let them travel through the "Jump Scar" and follow David. Sure enough, Roland arrives through the worm hole and wraps up David in his electro-net. Griffin manages to escape and stave off Roland until Roland returns back using the machine again. Millie releases David and wants to be taken home. Before David can comply, and a cable comes through and snatches Millie through it. Griffin wants to send over a bomb to destroy the Paladins, so he and David get into a round the world fight. Eventually, Griffin ends up in an electrical tower, and David returns to Michigan.
• The only way to save Millie is to jump her and her entire apartment to a new location. Then, David returns and fights with Roland capturing him and taking him to a spot that looks like the Grand Canyon. He leaves him there rather than feeding him to the sharks.
• In the lair, David had seen photos of his mother that Griffin had taken. His conclusion was, unfortunately, that his mother (Diane Lane) was a Paladin.
• He finds out where she lives and pays her a visit. His half sister, Sophie (Kristen Stewart) answers the door and calls her mom / his mom. She comes to the door. He asks her what happened. She explains that his first jump was at 5, so she had to leave or be faced with the dilemma, as her job is to catch and kill jumpers. He asks if she's going to kill him, and she replies, "No, I'm going to give you a head start."
Plot Problems:
• How is it that David started jumping at age 5 and didn't know it for 10 years until he was 15?
• How does Griffin find out about David and why does he follow him? Does he believe that David is reckless and will attract Paladins? Or does he know that David is Mary's son and she's high up in the Paladin organization?
• How is David supposed to be a sympathetic hero when he's a bank robber? Why doesn't he use his powers to save people? He claims throughout to be "different", but is he different? Just because he's left promissory notes in the banks he's robbed doesn't make it right.
• What are the genetics behind the Jumpers? If a Paladin can have a Jumper child, why do the Paladins feel all Jumpers need to be killed? How do the Paladins track the Jumpers in the first place?
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