Jupiter Ascending: Movie Review

If “Jupiter Ascending” doesn’t stop Warner Bros. from giving the Wachowski siblings mountains of money for future, costly, bloated films of sci-fi stupidity like their latest project, then I have no idea what is wrong with the studio. It is a train-wreck (or a star-ship wreck). The fact that it was pushed back from a Summer release to February was not a good sign. Sure the “Matrix” trilogy was successful, but only the first film was any good and that was back in 1999. Since then, they gave us “Speed Racer” which was a massive bomb and “Cloud Atlas” which didn’t fare much better. To be honest, the best film to date by writing/directing duo was their debut, 1996’s “Bound”. I know they are capable of making a great movie and I think it is time that Andy and Lana step back and try to make a much smaller movie.

What if Earth didn’t belong to the human race? What if it was owned, just as every other planet, by powerful intergalactic families? Well such is the case in “Jupiter Ascending”. In the latest baffling bad project from the Wachowski’s, a human housekeeper named Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) just so happens to be the reincarnated spirit of the mother of a powerful group of space siblings. The siblings are after Jupiter for different reasons. Titus (Douglas Booth) wants to wed Jupiter in order to gain control of Earth, Kalique (Tuppence Middleton) wants Earth for its youth maintaining properties, and the most powerful sibling, Balem (Eddie Redmayne) just wants to do all kinds of bad things.

Thankfully Jupiter had a new protector/ love interest in Caine (Channing Tatum), a human/dog hybrid who is also one hell of a bounty hunter. We follow Jupiter and Caine from Earth and into space through a series of action sequences that look expensive but lack any actual thrills. Much of the humor is unintentional, especially the laughably bad performance from Redmayne.

The visual effects also feel very stale. Kalique’s planet looks almost exactly like the Queen’s home planet in “Star Wars: Episode 1” and the other bounty hunters look like rejects that didn’t make it into “Guardians of the Galaxy”. There is just nothing that works in “Jupiter Ascending” and it’s a shame because good sci-fi is hard to come by now-a-days.

By: Marc Ferman