Jumper

First Impressions: Cardigan

Posted 15:12 (GMT) 14th January 2008

A couple of parish notices before I start the snark engine. Because I can't leave well enough alone, I've been... tinkering with the site. Here and there. Next time you read through the archives (which I'm sure is every week), you'll notice... changes. Unless you don't notice. Anyway, I don't really want to advertise what I've done. But I've done something. And I'll do it again. And keep doing it until there isn't anything left to do anymore. Whatever it was that I did.

Second parish notice, but related to the theme of spring cleaning, and that stupid picture of me holding a birthday cake is now officially gone from the archives. We all do silly things when we're in love but since it's been a year since my ex-girlfriend and I broke up, I don't see why I should have to suffer for it forever - and by suffer I mean having to look at the worst picture I have ever drawn, drawn in honour of an ex turning 18. It's just embarrassing. And it's gone.

So, Jumper. We get a lot of American media in England. That's a good thing, I love Hollywood films and sitcoms. All of my favourite things in the past five years have come out of America. From what I hear, it doesn't really happen the other way around. So we get a state of affairs in which the English know everything about the Americans but the Americans know jack shit (behold my Americanisms) about England.

That's fine. I know jack shit about Belgium, so I can't really complain. I don't want to talk about generic "British" villains, Hugh Grant movies or this frankly weird stereotype of the English as still living in the 19th century, wearing tweed, bowler hats and monocles which keeps cropping up in shows like The Simpsons and Family Guy. Forget that. I'm not talking about that. The fact is that I am evil, I will of course cry if I see the Union Jack burning and I am in some way related to the royal family.

No, what's really interesting (at least from my perspective) is when the people who invented English get English media served up to them by the rest of the English-speaking world, media which seems oblivious of how it will be received by the populace of Blighty.

I am of course talking about this new film Jumper which is coming out in February. It's about a guy who can teleport. But 'Teleporter' sounds really dumb so instead they called it Jumper. You know, because he... jumps. From place to place. Jumper is their cool made-up word for what this guy does. Like 'sliders' or 'clock-stoppers'.

But in England... and I am audibly sighing at having to articulate this... jumper is already a word. A jumper is something you wear. It's a pull-over. A sweater. How could they have not known this?

Do they not have an English guy they call to check how their film will be received in other countries? Did no-one there know that jumper means sweater in England? They might as well have called the film 'Pants' or 'Cardigan'.

John Cardigan fights terrorists... underground. "Oh my God, a dirty bomb... in the sewer? Get me Cardigan!" "Looks like things are about to get even dirtier down here." Cardigan: coming in 2009.

Exactly the same thing. The equivalent would be if a load of English film-makers made a movie about an athlete who sweats a lot and called it Sweater. Except that would never happen because, as I said before, we know what American words mean! If only it worked both ways.

Jumper actually looks like it could be a really good film. Shame about the stupid God damn name.

Review

Posted 16:15 (GMT) 23rd June 2008

I have ranted in the past about this film's stupid title but it didn't stop me from seeing it. Pretty simple, really - Hayden Christensen (last seen single-handedly ruining the Star Wars prequels) can teleport anywhere he likes. Samuel L. Motherfucking Jackson is trying to hunt him down and, you know, kill him. This film starts quite well when it follows the hero as a young boy, discovering his powers and exploring the ramifications (trips to Egypt, materialising inside bank vaults). Things sort of go downhill when Hayden Christensen actually appears on screen, having only previously manifested as a rather smug voice-over. Unfortunately, the actor they got in to play his younger self is a much better actor which gives the impression that the hero David has suffered brain damage since we saw him last. Don't get me wrong, Christensen is much better than he was in Star Wars, clearly more at home on a real set surrounded by human actors (are you listening, Lucas?), but when you look into his dead eyes there is only a dark void there. All but one of the plot threads are left wafting in the breeze by the time the credits roll, indicating that this is but the first of many chapters in a larger story, which would be encouraging if the first chapter didn't suck.

They say, correctly, that English compliments are secretly insults. Here's one: the best thing I can say about this film is that it has brilliant special effects.

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