With a star-studded cast including Hayden Christensen, Rachel Bilson, Samuel L. Jackson and Diane Lane, expectations were high for the new action-packed thriller “Jumper.” Unfortunately, great things were expected, but great things did not prevail.

From poor acting to a story that raises more questions than it answers, “Jumper” fails in more aspects than it succeeds in.

Hayden Christensen plays David, a twenty-something-year-old who has the ability to transport himself to anywhere in the world within a moment’s notice. He discovers this gift at the age of 15 when he leaves his alcoholic father in hopes of finding something more for his life. He now leads a life of carelessness and enjoys a nonstop cashflow from the banks he robs using his unique gift.

Samuel L. Jackson plays Roland, a jumper hunter, or paladin. It is his job to hunt down all the jumpers who exist in the world in order to extinguish them all. Throughout the movie, he is chasing David, whom he has been hunting since they discovered his powers. Millie, played by Rachel Bilson, gets caught up in the mess because she decides to accompany David on a spur-of-the-moment trip to Rome. They had been childhood friends before he disappeared, but the fact that she decides to take a trip around the world with someone she hardly knows seems a little unbelievable. Diane Lane plays David’s mom Mary, who abandoned him at five because she is a jumper hunter, and she was forced to choose to kill him or leave him. The only actor who gives a halfway decent performance is Jaime Bell, who plays Griffin, another jumper. Maybe it is the fact that he is a relative newcomer so expectations were not particularly high. At times, his superior acting and and more complex character takes the spotlight away from Hayden.

The whole teleporting phenomenon just seems like a gimmick in order to create visual splendor through intense and exciting action sequences. It is try that the movie is able to produce some particularly cool scenes, but its story clearly suffers from the screenwriting technique of forming a feature-length film around a paper thin premise.

Although the cross-continent action prevails, the weak acting and often unexplained storyline leave the viewer unsatisfied as the film concludes. The ending does leave room for a possible sequel, but whether that is a well-advised move by the production company seems unlikely. All in all, it turns out too many people came to look at the movie instead of actually watching it.