Hayden Christiansen in 'Jumper': A leap in time gone bad

In "Jumper," the fantasy of teleportation grows stronger by the moment - after just a few scenes, you want to be somewhere else.

This fantasy/adventure hybrid from Doug Liman (the first "Bourne") is about a young man named David (Hayden Christian-

sen) who discovers he can teleport to any location just by wishing he were there.

He uses this skill to get money, clothes and material things, becoming the sort of well-heeled international man of mystery who can pick up girls with ease.

In an opening scene, he brags that he just got "digits" from "some Polish chick in Rio" - I assume he doesn't mean fingers - and cites this as evidence that he's not "a chump, like you."

He is, in sum, almost completely unlikable, especially as played by Christiansen, acting as though he were still in "Phantom Menace III: Revenge of the Stiff."

So it's an unexpected relief when a (platinum blond!) Samuel L. Jackson shows up as a anti-teleportation bad-a-- who wants to kill David and others like him.

Turns out, there's an ancient feud between the so-called jumpers and men like Jackson, religious fanatics sworn to stamp out teleportation. They're called paladins, having been named, apparently, by people who detested Richard Boone in "Have Gun, Will Travel."

"Only God should have this power" growls Jackson, as he guts a jumper with what appears to be a ceremonial knife/ancient relic. This feels like Opus Dei by way of "The Da Vinci Code." Elsewhere the movie feels like a "Highlander" sequel, as David forms conflicts and alliances with a fellow jumper (Jamie Bell).

The stakes are quite low, given that David is such a schmuck. There are signs that "Jumper" wants to deepen his character, to prompt some soul-searching about the implications of his gift (with great power comes great responsibility) - one early scene pointedly shows David ignoring a TV report about a flood claiming the lives of people beyond the reach of rescuers. And the paladins justify their bloody crusade on the grounds that all jumpers turn bad - absolute power, and so forth.

But this moral introspection never gets under way, and "Jumper" instead concentrates on the trivial - David has the power to change history, and uses it to get busy with a girl he liked in high school.

Let's go, paladins. *

Produced by Lucas Foster, Simon Kinberg, Stacy Maes, Jay Sanders, directed by Doug Liman, written by Doug Liman, Jum Uhls, music by John Powell, distributed by Twentieth Century-Fox Films.