There are
a lot of reasons to not like this ridiculous movie. It is nice to see that most critics had their movie compasses properly oriented when they penned their reviews. RottenTomatoes.com gives this wretched little film a
meager 16% positive rating. The film is a jumbled mess of shaky-cam and quick cuts. The film's dialog is barely audible such that we don't know who the bad guys are and what motivates them until the third act. And even then, if you're not paying close attention, which is more than likely given the movies shaky-cam "style", you will miss it.
One thing most of the reviews do not touch on is self-centered twit with whom the audience is supposed to identify. The protagonist, David Rice (Hayden Christensen), starts the movie as a nerdy 15 year old loner who runs away from home, robs banks and becomes a 23 year old poster-child for
narcissism., continuing his bank robbing ways, so as to finance a travel and sight-seeing agenda that would put the world's greatest travel agent to shame. This is the dream of any kid who thinks he hates his parents. Seeing this played out in an "adult" who has not lived with his parent for 8 years strains the suspension of disbelief.
The film concerns one group of folks, Jumpers, who have the ability to
teleport to any location on Earth being hunted by another group,
Paladins, who think that being able to teleport into a bank and empty
it might not be such a good thing. The good guys, given Hollywood's antinomian and anti-authoritarian attitude, are the bank robbers. Most folks have a hard time identifying with self-centered bank robbers, so the Paladins are identified, by not one but two bits of exposition, by people motivated by religious fervor. In other words, what we have are anarchists fighting religious zealots.
What adds to the disturbing nature of this film's antinomian themes is that the target audience for the novel, upon which the film is based, are "young adults", aka, teenagers. We should not be surprised that selfish, ego-maniacal adults dominate when the message they received as kids was that heroism is characterized by selfishness and disregard for law and order.