BOTTOM LINE: An intriguing concept and a cool bad guy turn from Samuel L. Jackson can't save this woeful excuse of a sci-fi film.

THE GOOD: 'Jumper' has a very cool concept: there are people on the Earth who are born with the ability to teleport themselves to anywhere they please. They are hunted by another group of people who wish to exterminate them out of fear that they will ultimately do bad things. It's a great idea for a sci-fi action film and in many sequences throughout the film you get to see Mr Anti-Charisma himself, Hayden Christensen, jump all over the place in a matter of seconds, particularly when you see so many places and locales from around the world on show in the film. Makes you wonder what it would be like to have this power. He's being hunted by Samuel L. Jackson who creates a decent bad guy in Roland, the head of a secret organisation that is dedicated to wiping out the jumpers. This really could have been a wonderful, intelligent sci-fi/action/chase film.

THE BAD: Okay, where to start. Oh, I know, Hayden Christensen. If people learnt one thing from the Star Wars prequel trilogy it would be not to make Hayden Christensen the star of your film. Sorry kid, but you just can't act. He's just as wooden here as he was in the Star Wars prequels, although he does look a touch cooler in this film. This is bad enough but he's not entirely to blame for the mess that this film represents. Doug Liman who gave us the excellent 'The Bourne Identity' and the so-so action adventure 'Mr and Mrs Smith' must have left his judgment at the door. Although there are various directorial touches which give you the same sense of style that his previous films gave, where 'Jumper' falls down is in its rushed script which skimps over so many plot points as to not give them much depth or meaning, and to inhabit the film with characters which you really couldn't care less about. Not even the best actor in the world could save Christensen's character on paper - he's spoilt by his power making him quite the brat, and I found myself actually wanting to see Sam Jackson kick his ass in to the next millenium; not a feeling you want to feel for your main protagonist.

There's no sense of sympathy for that character and without sympathy for the lead (even if he's not a nice guy), you don't really have a hook for the audience. Character motivations are mad, particularly with the character of his girlfriend Millie who by all rights should be wanting to get away from Christensen - while the film goes in this direction, especially after she sees what he's capable of and the way he abuses his power, by the end of it all she has a change of heart and she excitedly goes off with him on adventures! Then of course there's all the scenes where the jumpers teleport in to and out of crowded public areas and no one (except for one scene) seems to be shocked. One ridiculous example is when Christensen teleports his father in to a hospital for treatment. No one ever seems to question how they ended up there in the first place, especially as the teleport occurs in full view of many people and actually damages the immediate surrounding rooms. All up, the film is just too fast for its own good and ridiculous, 'jumping' through plot points rather than taking the time to dramatically explore them and by the time you've had you're fill of Mr Anti-Charisma and the way his antics are ridiculously played out, you'll walk out of the theatre believing you've just wasted your time.