"Only God should have that power..."

Let me start by saying that I really wanted to like this movie. A film directed by Doug Liman (Mr. and Mrs. Smith and The Bourne Identity) starring Hayden Christensen (Star Wars Episode 2 and 3) and Samuel L. Jackson about a guy who can transport anywhere in the world whenever he wants sounds like a great premise. The trailer looked like fun and the movie posters with Hayden's character David Rice sitting atop the sphinx really piqued my imagination. Unfortunately, some of the best combinations still sometimes fail.

First off, I didn't mind Hayden Christensen's acting in this film (much better than he did in Star Wars, but that's a whole different can of worms!). He is believable and handles the role of the title character well. Rachel Bilson, who plays his love interest, has never been my favorite; Samuel L. plays his Roland character about the same as usual, and Diane Lane, the mother character, has about 25 seconds of total screen time. Overall, I'd say that the acting wasn't the problem.

Next off we come to the scenery. With a large budget, Director Liman was able to film all over the world including some of the most picturesque locations across Rome, Paris, Giza, Tokyo, and the United States. There is never a lack of visual eye candy in the background as we get to jump with the characters all over the globe in the blink of an eye. Getting to experience many different scenes taking place all over God's beautiful creation is definitely a bonus for this film.

Lastly we come to our problem, which is the story itself. The plot is pretty interesting: there are humans able to teleport anywhere they've been in the world in a second and a group of "religious nuts" called Paladins who want to track down and kill these "Jumpers" because they believe that God is the only one who should have the ability to do such things. The ability to teleport, if it were real, would be vastly different than God's omnipresence... but let's overlook that for the time being. These Paladins, led by Samuel L. Jackson's Roland character, are the "bad guys" in the film because they want to restore order and keep the Jumpers from wreaking havoc all over the world. Unfortunately, I could never really side with the Jumpers In the film at all. If they were to be using their power for good (see Spider-Man's "with great power comes great responsibility"), I could see the Paladins as maybe misguided or misinformed at worst. However, Christensen's character David Rice and his Jumper counterpart Griffin use their power for robbing banks, sleeping with multiple women, and trying to kill Paladins. There don't seem to be any heroic qualities in our "hero" at all, and the only justification is that his mom wasn't there and his dad wasn't much of a father.

Even without a single semblance of retribution or redemption, there are a few ideas that really stick out and make the movie at least watchable. First, I liked the fact that it touches a little on omnipresence, and somewhat mentions God and His qualities. Second, Samuel L. Jackson's has a line that really stuck in my head: "You think it could go on like this forever? Living like this with no consequences? There are always consequences!" It is a great reminder of God's omniscience, as in Psalm 139 verses 11 and 12 where it says "If I say 'surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,' even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you." It reminds us that God sees us even when we are hiding from Him, and conversely that He is always there watching out for us even when we can't see or feel Him.

Sometimes it takes movies like this to remind us of some of God's truths and promises. That, coupled with beautiful scenery and a pretty cool idea, makes the movie entertaining... but definitely wanting something more.