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.