Of Jumpers and Men

A buddy of mine in Chicago has written several of these really clever double-reviews, where he discusses / compares two movies at once - typically films you wouldn't expect to see paired in a discussion. It's a neat device for analysis, and something I never would have thought to do without his pioneering the concept.

Here's links to his double-reviews:
Dr. No meets 27 Dresses
She's the Man meets Seven Samurai
Boondock Saints meets A Night at the Opera

I'm going to borrow the format now, though since it's me, chances are I'll lack the elegant brevity exhibited at The Digital Sextant. Also, it would be improper of me to not also share credit with my wife, who helped brainstorm some of the following analysis...

Of Jumpers and Men

It never would have occurred to me that the largely-forgettable action / Sci Fi pic Jumper would have anything in common with Steinbeck's classic character study (set against the backdrop of the first Great Depression), had I not seen them both on the same day.

The version of Of Mice and Men that I watched was the 1992 remake, starring Gary Sinise and Malkovich Malkovich Malkovich. Aside from the big stars, there were lots of other familiar faces, including Uncle Martin the Martian, Audrey Horne of Twin Peaks, and a young(er) Dr Christian Shepherd from Lost. It's capacity to make me think so often of other films when characters were introduced was the first of many parallels, as I couldn't help but think of Star Wars prequels whenever Sam L Jackson and Hayden Christensen shared a screen.

SPOILER ALERT:

• Both films shared a central theme of prejudice. Of Mice and Men focuses on the real-world ugliness of racism and the mistreatment of people with developmental disorders, whereas Jumper had a more fanciful "secret Paladins hunt Teleporters for religious reasons" motif.


• On that topic, both films featured exactly one African-American character, and made a point of having a slew of other characters verbally remind us of his heritage 5 or 6 times during the film. OMaM tended to drop the N-Bomb, whereas Jumper just kept drawing our attention to "the black guy with the white hair".


• The second shared theme of the films was responsibility, and a third was compulsive behavior. Lenny Small tries (and fails) to overcome his addiction to touching pretty or soft things, and David Rice can't seem to overcome his addiction to reckless teleportation and bank robbing.


• George feels responsibility for Lenny, and tries to protect him, but eventually concludes he has to kill him.
  This theme is paralleled in two relationships in Jumper. Mary Rice feels responsibility to protect her son David, but at the end of the film she says she'll give him a short headstart before she hunts and kills him. David Rice befriends Griffin, a fellow Jumper, but shortly before the end of the film, Griffin's irresponsible behavior causes David to leave him for dead. Neither Jumper plot has the power of Steinbeck's work, largely due to no sense of past between the characters. David barely knows Griffin or Mary, whereas Lenny and George have lots of history.


• "A guy goes nuts if he ain't got nobody. Don't make no difference who the guy is, long's he's with you." That's a line from Steinbeck, issued by a completely different character about a completely different situation, but clearly explaining why George keeps Lenny around despite all the hassles.
  In Jumper it gets translated into a Marvel Team-Up reference/analogy, and David never directly acknowledges the subtext that he's desperately lonely and needs a fellow Jumper to talk to. This is the one and only way in which Jumper is more subtle than Of Mice and Men.


• Lenny and George constantly talk about Aunt Clara, who we never see. They also talk lovingly of a dream of a future homestead that never comes to be. There's a sense that both topics are ethereal, and may in fact be just lies people tell to keep hope alive during the bleak Depression Era.
  David Rice likewise constantly talks about his mother who abandoned him. She does appear in the film, but briefly and so artificially that she doesn't seem like a real character, either.


• OMaM opens with George and Lenny on the run because of an incident involving a woman in a red dress. To escape pursuit, they hide underwater.
  Jumper begins with an incident with a girl in a red jacket, which prompts Rice to disappear beneath the water and run away from home.


• Much later, Lenny gets into trouble over a woman again, unable to keep his distance as he's been warned to do by friendly George and evil curly.
  Likewise, David Rice gets into trouble over the same girl in a red coat many years later, despite having been warned off by his mother who says the girl is already dead, and will only get David killed if he doesn't abandon her.


• Around the mid-point of OMaM, Lenny is attacked by Curly, the mean ol' son of the boss. At first Lenny holds back, not using his abnormal strength, but eventually he snaps, and his over-reaction has consequences later in the film (as it makes hot-headed Curly harbor that much extra violent resentment towards Lenny).
  Around the midpoint of Jumper, David gets into a fight with the bully he used to go to school with. David holds back at first, not using his superhuman powers, but eventually he snaps and teleports the bully to a locked bank vault. This momentary over-reaction has dire consequences later, as the bully is subsequently interrogated by the bad guys, giving them leads they'd never have access to otherwise.


• Both films also make a showcase of physical deformity. In OMaM, it's a very common character theme. Lenny is oversized and awkward. Candy has a crippled hand. Curly wears a single glove (a social deformity, more than physical). Crooks has a bad back from being kicked by a horse.
  Jumper, being a product of the modern era and Hollywood's pretty-face machine, takes all it's deformity and puts it in just one shocking basket - Sam Jackson's hair.

From the above, you'd no doubt conclude (unsurprisingly) that I rather preferred Of Mice and Men to Jumper. I won't deny that. The Steinbeck tale (with it's grippingly personal narrative and wholly realized character studies) makes for a better film in all ways and categories except for Special Effects and Cinematography, both of which are the pinnacles of Jumper's achievements.

But it's perhaps not fair to snidely label the later as all style and no substance. Jumper was fun, and had more hits than misses, even if it wasn't terribly deep. The gamer in me typically screams "that's not what I'd do!" in plot-hole-laden sci-fi films, but Jumper provoked that reaction far less often than most films of it's ilk. Both movies had above-average verisimilitude. Perhaps, Jumper is signs that the Hollywood Action Mill is finally starting to realize "genre" doesn't have to mean "unbelievable".

Then again, Sam L's hair was pretty unbelievable.