Jupiter Ascending (2015)

I’m familiar with a majority of the Wachowskis work on the big screen and it’s been a mostly positive experience. Yes, that third Matrix film was a dud but I liked Speed Racer, enjoyed V for Vendetta and the 1st Matrix movie still stands up well to this day. I think they’re one of the most imaginative writers/directors working in the biz today and I wanted to give this movie of theirs a shot. Yeah, it got killed by critics and barely broke even at the box office but that didn’t mean it was guaranteed to be a terrible film. Part of me wondered if the masses were right but I wanted to see with my own peepers if that was the case.

After giving this movie 2 hours of my life, my first thought was that I didn’t hate it.  This isn’t a historically bad film at all. I’ve seen some real basura and this wasn’t a complete nightmare on celluloid.

However….

I can see why critics gave so many thumbs down and why it never gained traction 

The good:

The visuals - The Wachowskis spared no expense to make this film’s visual appeal top tier. The costumes, the sets, some of the CGI, the technology involved in a film that spans the universe…all of it stimulating the optic stems something serious.

The diverse cast of supporting characters -  I can’t remember such a diverse blend of races and sexes in space. You’ve got robots, aliens, dragons, and humans spliced with the DNA of animals all co-existing in the same visual space with none of them sticking out like sore thumbs. Plus all the human races are accounted for here as well.  Nikki Amuka-Bird as Captain Diomika Tsing of the Aegis stuck out to me in particular, doing a wonderful job as a strong and forceful member of an intergalactic police force .  

The bad:

A lack of immersion – All moviegoers are not created equal, which I understand. I totally get that. Sometimes the content you create may go over some people’s heads and you can’t always hold anyone’s hand or dumb it down just so everybody can get “it”. But this movie did a poor job of immersing the viewer into the fictional world it created.  We’re thrown into the deep end of a wave pool and told to make our way to shore as fast as possible and that’s not gonna work for a lot of people. I can see how some would give up on an endeavor like that 30-45 minutes in. I was able to get right side up about an hour into the film but not everybody can be so lucky...

Eddie Redmayne – He was laughably bad in this and that’s on the directors. I’m not sure who okayed his performance or how that allowed to stay in the film after all the editing but his character was a mix of Gary Oldman’s police captain from The Professional spliced with an old man with emphysema. Terrible.

The plot – You couldn’t explain this thing to anybody else coherently if you tried. It’s packed to the gills with a lot of ideas but explaining how each part interlocks with another would be an fool’s errand. I wonder if this movie was even pitched. My guess is that someone heard the Wachowskis wanted to make another movie and were bringing a lot of financing to the table so they said, ‘Sure, why not? We might get another Matrix!”

Jupiter Jones – Mila Kunis did what she could with this role but I think it was a poorly realized character from the jump. She spends a majority of the first hour of the film asking questions.  Most of her dialogue starts with a who, what, where, why or how and that can be exceedingly frustrating when the character doesn’t seem like she’s learning anything along the way. Why ask all those questions if you’re not using the information to your advantage, Jupiter?

She also spends a lot of time on Channing Tatum’s back or in his arms because she’s constantly being saved from falling. Beginning, middle and end there’s a scene with her falling and screaming and Skates McGee aka Channing Tatum comes to her rescue.

I’m not even going to go into her throwing herself at Channing multiple times, hinting that she’s REALLY into the fact that he’s spliced with animal DNA…UGH

Rollerblading through the cosmos – I can’t in good conscience let that slide. Let the hoverboots be like Jupiter’s at the end (skateboard style) or just hover with them like Iron Man’s boots. The rollerskating thing just looked ridiculous 90% of the time.

All in all, Jupiter Ascending was an ambitious project from the Wachowskis that had a lot of promise. Some of that promise, especially through the visuals, was fully realized and needs to be commended, praised and utilized across Hollywood going forward. But the movie as a whole can’t support the weight of its creators imaginations.  Questionable acting performances, a convoluted plot that’s not even really focused on who the film’s named for and an insistence on not being accessible really hurt this film and prevent it from being the smash hit it could’ve been.

Jupiter Ascending (2015)

Dude, I don't really know what you want me to say about this that hasn't already been said already. Not sure how to avoid spoilers. Sorry in advance.

You already know the premise - Jupiter Jones is the 1/4th British 3/4th Russian illegal immigrant to the US daughter of a family who clean for a living. Umm...apparently she always looks really great at dinner despite cleaning all day and one day, one of her clients gets visited by aliens, she snaps a photo of it and somehow manages not to post it to Facebook or tweet it.

Oh and then she goes to sell her eggs because her cousin told her to, because he wants to buy a TV and a new XBox and convinces her to give him more of the money than she'll make despite the fact that he's not actually doing anything. She shows up to sell her eggs and turns out, these aliens were really after her and have come to take a sample of her DNA to find out if she's really a clone of the matron of an intergalatic drug ring that harvest humans so people around the galaxy can live forever, thanks to superior technology developed tens of thousands of years ago.

Also these people killed the dinosaurs indirectly.

So yeah, I dunno. Channing Tatum plays a genetically modified space human who has wolf DNA and somehow he falls in love with cleaning lady turned true owner of Earth. I'd call it Space Cinderella except that's not really what it is. It's so much more than that.

I finally went to see it mostly because of timing and the fact that I didn't have a lot else going on tonight. I'm a lover of sci-fi the way some people love other film genres and so, if there's space involved and any kind of politics at all, then I'm probably going to be able to sit through it. This had all of that and more. I'd say that Jupiter Ascending has cult classic fingerprints all over it -- in fact, it seems clear that's what they were after -- but there's not enough here to make you want to pile all your friends up and make them watch. 

Not enough laughs. This story can't tell whether it wants to be in on the joke or not. At times it is, in the same way that Guardians of the Galaxy was for the entire movie. (Which frankly, made it hard for me to take it seriously) But Jupiter Ascending wants to be The Fifth Element, Total Recall and Blade Runner melded together in a 21st century sheen. In that sense, it almost does that.

Props to the Wachowskis for creating an original story, but they don't get full points for creating a messy slapstick science fiction movie that doesn't really take its audience seriously. I mean, what are we supposed to do with all of this stuff? Maybe that's the point? We're supposed to watch and just make up our own minds about all of it?

The worst part is really the ending. I mean, after ALL that she went through to retain her rightful inheritance of Earth, she ends up returning home to be with her family and continues cleaning things. She and the bounty hunter that was sent to protect her and bring her back to space where her space heirs -- oh, you didn't know, she's actually the clone of their mother -- were all fighting to have her on their side or killed or well....we're not even sure.

So in all, Jupiter Ascending as bad as everyone is making it out to be. It's somehow better and worse than that all at once. There were times that I wanted to watch it and be like "ok, I get it now." Or where I thought, "there's something here that you could use," and even parts (the whole bureaucracy of getting her title to the throne) where I literally guffawed and appreciated what they were trying to do.

But to have to sit through all of the really awful stuff for a few morsels of goodness wasn't ultimately worth it. I don't regret seeing it in the movies -- it'd have been worse at home where I could pause and really hate it -- but I'm just disappointed they didn't just make one decent movies rather than try to crap three or four bad movies into one subpar film.