Another Cool Concept Ruined

Sometimes films feature antiheroes to be dark and edgy. Other times the hero is made to be actually bad to make some subversive point or just to screw with the audiences preconceived ideas. And then there's the designated hero.

This abomination of poor design occurs when the character in question is said out to be heroic but fails to act this way. David, the protagonist of the movie Jumper, is exceptionally guilty of this. He is supposed to be a good guy but comes off worse than the two villains.

After learning of his ability to teleport he starts robbing banks. Now I'm sure a lot of people would do just the same thing (I probably would too) and by itself bank theft doesn't make David a horrible hero, just a flawed character with all too human urges. If only this was the end.

A timeskip later David his shown having amassed quite a fortune, but this doesn't stop him from petty shoplifting. In almost any other circumstance one could at least argue that it is more convenient to break into a shop in England than return to your home in America for a change of clothes.....but David can freaking teleport. Fairly easily as well. There'll be more on old Davy's broken morals but lets follow his faults as the film shows them.

Perhaps angered by a bad film with a good concept, Samuel motherfucking Jackson enters scene left and curbstomps David. And what does our intrepid hero do now that he is aware of someone who knows who and what he is AND wants to kill him? David proceeds to go back to his hometown and pick up his old flame Millie. So he's a tactical genius as well as a morally upright person.

David and Millie go to Rome. There's nothing like attempted assassination to put you in the mood for a foreign holiday. They also take a commercial air plane. Well David's keeping his power secret right? Too bad he didn't hesitate to hide it when he was showing up an old bully.

Another jumper Griffin soon enters the story to save David from some Paladins and deliver cold but sensible advice. Never one to miss an opportunity at being an ass our hero interferes with Griffin's plans and compromises his secret base.

Things get ugly and the Paladins capture Millie. Griffin plans to blow them all up but David stops him; this is traditional hero behaviour. What's not traditional behaviour is deliberately trapping your opponent on a giant powerline. Apparently David wasn't opposed to Griffin killing several people cold bloodedly, just that his girlfriend would be killed as well.

Leaving Griffin to an unknown fate David confronts Samuel motherfucking Jackson and teleports him to the middle of nowhere with no way of contacting anyone. David claims to be 'sparing' him and that he is 'different' [from Griffin and other jumpers]. Theft, being an accessory to murder, and manslaughter are apparently fine but our illustrious protagonist draws the line at outright murder. Touching.

The sad thing is that with some effort either Griffin or the Paladins could have been made into much better heroes. Griffin, and by extension other jumpers, could have been shown as tragic individuals, constricted by laws and concepts enforced by a society that this below them. Alternatively the Paladins could have be shown to be (also) tragic figures, fighting a losing battle against hedonistic beings that upset the foundations of civilisation and science.

But instead we get David, a moron who is supposed to fulfil our fantasies while also being a clichéd movie hero, who manages to successfully do neither.