Jumper

A young man (Hayden Christensen) has the ability instantly to transport himself almost anywhere—and a mysterious man (Samuel L. Jackson) wants to kill him for it. Director Doug Liman and writers David S. Goyer, Jim Uhls and Simon Kinberg (adapting Steven Gould’s novel) are so eager to get into all their nifty “jump” effects that they’re careless about telling us the exact rules of the game. Liman ramps up the frenetic furor of the battles between Christensen and Jackson’s characters in an effort to keep the illogic of the story from bothering us overmuch, but questions pop in and out of the picture almost as frequently as Christensen does. Jamie Bell plays a fellow “Jumper,” Rachel Bilson is Christensen’s high-school sweetheart, and Michael Rooker and Diane Lane play thankless bits as his parents.