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The Tampa Tribune

Published: February 14, 2008

DEFINITELY, MAYBE ***

Surely it's not too early to feel nostalgic for 1992. After all, it was 16 whole years ago. No iPods yet - and those clunky cell phones! Kurt Cobain was still alive and Bill Clinton hadn't even met Monica Lewinsky, much less have sexual relations with that woman.

Thankfully, writer-director Adam Brooks doesn't wallow too obnoxiously in the not-so-distant kitsch with "Definitely, Maybe," a surprisingly clever romantic comedy that starts brightly but unfortunately loses its spark at the end. He mainly uses the period to establish the story of Ryan Reynolds' Will, a disillusioned New York ad man who's just been served divorce papers when the movie opens.

That afternoon, he picks up his 10-year-old daughter Maya (the always adorable Abigail Breslin) from school and is horrified to discover that she and her classmates have had a sex education lesson, which prompts a flurry of uncomfortable questions about where she came from and who else Will dated besides her mom.

And so Will reluctantly tells her of his romantic past as a bedtime story, changing the names so that she (and we) won't know which girlfriend became her mother until the end. There's Emily (Elizabeth Banks), his wholesome college sweetheart from Wisconsin; April (Isla Fisher), a flighty but quick-witted aide he meets while working on Clinton's presidential campaign; and the sophisticated writer Summer (Rachel Weisz), who's out of his league.

Brooks' characters are distinctly drawn and well cast, with each woman believably shaping Will into the man he becomes. And Reynolds, who is in every scene, continues to move beyond such raunchy comedies as "Van Wilder" to establish himself as a viable leading man, with terrific looks and even better comic timing. He has especially great chemistry with the effervescent Fisher; when they're together, as close friends who clearly long to be more, they make "Definitely, Maybe" feel like a throwback to the classics of the genre.

But while Brooks has made an inventive romantic comedy - something that seems impossible to do these days - his ending takes way too long and makes too many twists.

PG-13 (sexual content, profanity and smoking); 111 minutes

JUMPER **

So let's say you're a young, good-looking guy, with strong cheekbones and puppy-dog eyes and pillowy, kissable lips. Hayden Christensen, for instance.

And let's say you have this amazingly cool ability to jump anywhere in the world at any time, just by thinking of the place you want to go. You can ride the waves in Fiji, have a picnic atop the Sphinx or pop into London to pick up a random blonde for a one-night stand, then teleport yourself back to your sleek, spacious Manhattan apartment.

You don't have to worry about working because your income comes from robbing banks. But you can't tell anyone about this talent so you have to experience all these adventures by yourself. Having no friends, you couldn't confide in anyone, anyway.

Wouldn't you feel lonely? Guilty? Conflicted? Something ... ?

Not in "Jumper," which is all concept and zero substance.

Director Doug Liman, who's made a huge leap of his own from small '90s gems ("Swingers" and "Go") to blockbusters ("The Bourne Identity" and "Mr. & Mrs. Smith"), initially offers up what feels like a globe-trotting thriller for the ADD generation.

It's all fun and sexy until you start wondering: Who is this David Rice guy, and how can he do this? He has a complicated superhero skill - even comes from the obligatory, unhappy childhood - but he's too shallow and purposeless to be considered a true hero.

And so it's hard to care about David, and harder still to feel engaged once he's hunted by an underground group of "paladins" trying to rid the world of "jumpers," led by Samuel L. Jackson's Roland. (Jackson mails it in with some standard threats and that impatient, menacing look in his eyes we've come to expect.) Why they're so worked up over the jumpers' teleporting abilities is unclear - something about how only God should be everywhere all the time. Sounds like sour grapes, is all.

But special effects alone aren't enough, and the climactic showdown between Christensen and Jackson feels ridiculously overblown.

Ultimately, the movie ends in an abrupt, unsatisfying fashion. But then again, the whole thing feels truncated - giant chunks of context are missing, as if they jumped past those during editing.

PG-13 (intense action violence, profanity and brief sexuality); 92 minutes

Christy Lemire,

The Associated Press

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