• “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, and 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.

That afternoon, he picks up his 10-year-old daughter (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. He tells her of his romantic past as a bedtime story, changing the names so 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. The characters are distinctly drawn and well cast, with each woman believably shaping Will into the man he becomes. But while Brooks has made an inventive romantic comedy, his ending takes way too long and makes too many twists. RATED: PG-13 for sexual content, including some frank dialogue, language and smoking. RUNNING TIME: 111 minutes. RATING: 3 out of 4 stars

– Christy Lemire, AP movie critic

• “JUMPER”: 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 surf in Fiji, have a picnic atop the Sphinx or pop into London to pick up a random blonde for a one-night stand. 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. You have no friends so 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 initially offers up what feels like a globe-trotting thriller for the ADD generation. (The script is based on a pair of young-adult, sci-fi novels from Steven Gould.) It’s all fun and sexy until you start wondering, who is this guy and how can he do this? He has a complicated superhero skill, but he’s too shallow and purposeless to be considered a true hero. Special effects alone aren’t enough, and the climactic showdown between Christensen and Samuel L. Jackson, as one of the “paladins” who hunt the “jumpers,” feels ridiculously overblown. Then the movie just ends in an abrupt, unsatisfying fashion.

RATED: PG-13 for sequences of intense action violence, some language and brief sexuality. RUNNING TIME: 92 minutes. RATING: 2 out of 4 stars

– Christy Lemire, AP movie critic


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