I’m such a travel whore that the mere fact of this magic-hour still from Jumper (with Hayden Christensen and Rachel Bilson) having been shot on the Tiber in Rome makes me almost want to see it. Next May on DVD, I mean. Okay, maybe I’ll sneak into it at the Grove and catch five minutes’ worth this weekend.

I’m not interested in sitting through the whole thing because it’s been described as if it’s another Doug Liman jizz-spray sell-out film, the first being Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Liman was a hip prince when he made Swingers, Go and The Bourne Identity. Why oh why did he suddenly turn into this other guy? It’s like some Body Snatcher pod was placed next to his bed at 3 ayem and took over.
“It’s impossible for outsiders to know who deserves most of the blame for this dud,” writes N.Y. Times critic Manohla Dargis. “Its director, Doug Liman, its three screenwriters, its multiple producers or the various studio executives who might have done far too much meddling or not nearly enough.
“Whatever the case, Jumper –a barely coherent genre mishmash about a guy who transports himself across the globe at will — is of interest only because it revisits a theme that Mr. Liman has explored in films like The Bourne Identity and, if reports about his troubled productions are true, speaks to his own reputation as an escape artist: the character who wiggles out of trouble.”