Wednesday, October 31, 2007

Jumper

Today I will be reviewing the movie site for the film Jumper. The film looks cool and the trailer looks very exciting and makes me want to see it, so I was excited to see the website. Sadly the website is not as slick as the trailer. Since the film is about jumping from one place to another (as in across the globe) I thought it would have a site that mimics this narrative from the film, but it doest. Instead, the site is limited to what seems to be a hideout that one of the characters is posting all his findings about the jumpers. Not really sure whose room it is though, although I don't really feel inclined to find out. The navigation is the rather common sliding image with various items hot linked. However it becomes obvious all they did was use a production still and photo shopped elements into the scene. The stills are extremely cluttered and makes for finding click-able objects rather difficult. Although I like the idea of searching for clues users should never have to search for film info. Even the cast section doesn't list the cast by name. If this an underground site and not intended to have this info that is fine too but then they need to build a separate EPK site or an "About the Film" section to provide that important information that people still look for.

The sections are typical for the most part. The mythology section does a nice job explaining the concept of the film a bit deeper, but only after you figure out which paper on the wall is click-able. The case history and jumper files are interesting but rather poorly executed. It uses the common legal papers from a file folder but lacks the ability to read anything but the top pages. Making it impossible and frustrating to read the articles and evidence in these folders. As a visitor I really wanted to explore these documents and read them but the site denies this desire. Also I have to add the sound design is rather monotonous. Every item when you roll over has the same sound and someone needs to fix the ambient loop, it times out too frequently. I would have preferred a much more subtle sound effect for the items and menu.

Overall a site for a really cool movie that could be made into a much cooler site, its still early as the movie is about 4 months away so I will check back and see if they are updates.

Rating : 5
http://www.jumperthemovie.com/

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