JUPITER ASCENDING(PG-13)
**** (out of 5)
February 6, 2015
STARRING
Mila Kunis as JUPITER JONES
Channing Tatum as CAINE WISE
Sean Bean as STINGER APINI
Eddie Redmayne as BALEM ABRASAX
Douglas Booth as TITUS ABRASAX
Tuppence Middleton as KALIQUE ABRASAX
Studio: Warner Bros.
Directed by: The Wachowskis
BY KEVIN CARR
Listen to Kevin’s radio review…
One of the most depressing things about the release of “Jupiter Ascending” is the virtual feeding frenzy of criticism surrounding the film. The Wachowskis – who were once considered the golden children of science fiction, destined to lead a city of sequels, reboots and remakes out of the dark ages – have become two of the most maligned filmmakers for doing exactly what they’re supposed to do: make original and stimulating science fiction cinema.
Yeah, I know a lot of people have taken issue with some clunky writing, poor casting and possibly racially-insensitive elements (looking at you, “Cloud Atlas”). I don’t deny those things exist in their films. However, there’s still a lot of greatness in the Wachowskis’ vision.
This actually started as far back as with “The Matrix Reloaded.” Not being able to deliver the freshness and innovation of bullet-time and the OMG-inspiring reactions to Neo waking up from the Matrix was their downfall. Back then, I lamented that you will never experience bullet-time for the first time ever again, just as you’ll only be able to experience John William’s majestic score and the “Star Wars” crawl for the first time ever again. However, that doesn’t mean that the filmmakers are cinematic pariahs for not being able to deliver such an effect upon every outing.
Like “Cloud Atlas,” “Jupiter Ascending” delivers exactly what critics and film fans have been clamoring for, a wholly original, visionary science fiction thrill ride that doesn’t rely on a long-standing brand like “Star Wars” or the Marvel series. However, because they’re not on that familiar ground, these films seem to suffer and struggle to find an audience.
So, is “Jupiter Ascending” a masterpiece? No, but I doubt the Wachowskis ever intend to make one of those. Sadly, it was “The Matrix” that broke the mold more than 15 years ago, and they haven’t been able to make a new one. Still, if you’re not going in to skewer the movie because it’s the cool thing to do, you might just enjoy it for the pulpy old-school fun factor.
The story follows a young woman named Jupiter (Mila Kunis) who lives with her Russian immigrant family and cleans toilets for a living in Chicago. However, when she stumbles onto an apparent alien abduction, she soon learns that she is intergalactic royalty, being hunted by several different bounty hunters. One of them, a wolf-soldier hybrid named Caine (Channing Tatum) saves her life and takes her to the stars to claim her birthright ownership of the Earth. Of course, her intergalactic family are also scheming and fighting amongst themselves to seize control of the planet for sinister developmental purposes.
While I was skeptical of Kunis and Tatum in these roles – and while I will quickly admit that they are each far from perfect for the parts – they are entirely serviceable in the film. Kunis’s character is sadly underwritten, and some of the silly decisions she makes throughout the film appear to be bad writing on the surface but upon greater reflection are probably unfortunate artifacts of time compression.
The other thing that stands out as silly in this movie is Eddie Redmayne’s breathy villain. He chews the scenery as badly as Gary Oldman does in “The Fifth Element,” but you can’t fault him for his level of commitment. It’s an over-the-top performance and a calculated misfire, but I could look past it and enjoy the film around it.
Things slow down in the second act a bit more than I’d like, but that was a result of the film juggling some pretty high concepts with some pretty standard story elements. However, it’s hard to deny the fun I had watching the film’s brilliant action sequences and visually arresting effects.
Recently, I revisited the much-maligned “Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace” after powering through several episode of forgotten 1940s-era serials upon which George Lucas based his series. It was then that I realized that “The Phantom Menace” is much smarter satirical filmmaking than anyone gives it credit for. Sure, it has some lazy writing, racist characters, some painfully substandard characters and some extremely stilted dialogue. However, after watching a couple episodes of “Terry and the Pirates,” “Flash Gordon” and “Nyoka the Jungle Girl,” I realized these were all riffing on the archetypes set up in the 40s.
Similarly, “Jupiter Ascending” is riffing off of pulp science fiction stories that appeared in magazines like “Amazing Stories,” “Astounding Science Fiction” and “Fantastic” before the new wave literary movement ruined the written version of science fiction and “Star Wars” brought the genre to the popular mainstream in the 70s. If you don’t believe me, just look at the character roster on “Jupiter Ascending.” With names like Jupiter Jones as heroine, Caine Wise as the genetic hybrid dog soldier and Stinger as a character who was spliced with bee DNA, how could this not be a deliberate choice? Add to this all the winks and nods the Wachowskis do to classic science fiction from “Flash Gordon” movie riffs to a brilliant cameo by Terry Gilliam in the most “Brazil”-esque sequences in the film.
“Jupiter Ascending” is a fascinating and beautiful movie that might have a problem connecting with the average filmgoer, and that’s a shame. As much as I love the Star Wars and Marvel franchises, their unabashed success at the global box office makes it harder for less mainstream and more out-of-the-box features to get a piece of the pie.
Personally, I hope the Wachowskis don’t stop making movies, and I hope they can still manage to secure budgets (maybe not as huge as the ones for this film and “Cloud Atlas”). They are true artists in the realm, and they never fail to give us something unique and different. Not everything they do can – or will – be “The Matrix,” and we would be very naive to expect as much.
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I Wholeheartedly agree! ***** I saw it in 3D on opening night with my husband and thought it was visually stunning.
We enjoyed the whole movie though we went away feeling that it wasn’t quite what we were expecting.
My husband is a HUGE Alien conspiracy buff and was very much linked to the idea that we were a seeded colony and enhanced with alien DNA to help our race to evolve…. He feels that the latest explosion of syfy storylines both on TV and the cinema is meant to slowly desensitize and help us to integrate into the Idea that we are definitely NOT the only race of intelligent life in the universe as well as introduce the story line of the Samaritans and the Anunnaki alien races (discussed on Ancient Aliens from the History 2 channel on TV) which they sort of did.
Any way…… We feel that this story line had so many layers that there was absolutely no way it could have all been included in the time frame of one movie, and that is why we had to jump only from the primary residences of sibling to sibling without a proper back story or in-depth look into their entire cultural society.
(Long story short) Even though I really loved the movie I feel that the story is actually much bigger than the movie was able to properly portray. (please don’t think i’m crazy 🙂 )
…or could it be that it’s the other way around? There are no alien races and “desensitization” to them, but Hollywood simply jumps on the next bandwagon and tries to exploit what’s most popular nowadays. As luck would have it, it’s aliens and sci-fi (again), just like 50 years ago it was Biblical stories, 40 years ago it was family and love dramas, 30 years ago it was yuppie-themed movies, 20 years ago it was “one against all”, 10 years ago it was “sword and sandal” (again)…. In case you missed it, which I’m sure you didn’t – much was said about “2012 phenomenon” and “raising consciousness” about it. What happened in that year apart from a lousy Hollywood flick called “2012”?
I wan’t call you exactly crazy, but you surely prefer complex and inconvincing explanations over the simple ones. The favorite roll call of people like you is “Wake up, there are aliens!”. Mine would be – to you – wake up, there are no aliens! Reality is far more interesting than a sci-fi.
You are not crazy- it makes more sense than a Santa Claus deity deciding the fate of the Universe
With humans beings the center of it all
I genuinely appreciate attempts to bring new stories to mainstream Hollywood, rather than remakes, reboots, sequels and adaptations. (That’s one of the reasons I also enjoyed Cameron’s Avatar; for all its shortcomings and derivative aspects, it was still far more original than most big-budget product.) And breaking away from the tried-and-true involves taking creative risks, not all of which pan out — that’s the nature of risks. So I was with you here right up until one passing remark…
“the new wave literary movement ruined the written version of science fiction…”
Come again? I thoroughly enjoy a lot of the SF that came out of the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s, but you have to admit that most of what remains in print to read today is the wheat that was surrounded by chaff at the time… and even so a lot of it doesn’t age terribly well, and has to be read in historical context. The 1960s broadened SF’s horizons tremendously, opening it up to new levels of thematic, psychological, and political sophistication. I am flabbergasted at the notion that this somehow “ruined” anything, or that George Lucas riffing on pulpy tropes that were tired decades-old cliches in the ’70s (never mind the ’90s or today) was any signifier of originality.
I find this review overly apologetic and in a very campy way. “The film has this and that critical flaw – but I can get past it!”. Sure you can – everybody can. But why should we? Because of obscure references?
Most movies have references. It’s even better for a filmmaker if the audience doesn’t know about them – it makes him look all the more creative and original. However, if those references don’t work or are out of place – it’s not audience’s fault, regardless of their expertise, it’s entirely on the film crew.
Just take a look at the bureaucracy scene. I’m a little above “average moviegoer” and was instantly reminded of Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Monty Python. But that scene feels so out of place in “Jupiter Ascending” – it adds more confusion to the plot (I mean, who rules that damn universe then?), it adds unnecessary change of pace and atmosphere and is not particularly clever in its own right. Frankly, it stands out like a turd in a punch bowl, and if you care for references, you’ll know where this one came from.
There are more like this one but I’ll save them for my own review. 🙂
Great sets, great looking alien city scapes, solid gunfights, but where G’s of the Galaxy has great characters and super, witty funny dialogue Jupiter has none of those…. The Matrix struck a chord with a plot centered around seeing thru an illusion that was just like our physical reality, with a great mix of characters…. but Jupiter has a one dimensional save the girl plot. Where Keneau Reeves needed to hone his skills to win fights, Channing Tatum wins em all no matter how many bad guys there are, very one dimensional. Where The Matrix had C.A. Moss kick boxing her way out of a jam, Jupiter is like Katnip in Hunger Games, a cowardly clueless wimp who has to be saved over and over and over again.
I agree with your review. Well done. Those other critics were expecting something else and were let down. I watched it in 3D and felt like it was a breath of fresh air. I feel like it’s even worthy of a sequel.
I only saw this last Saturday, and I am sad to have seen it so late in its soon to be near-forgotten release because I thought it was a joy ride. I had a ball watching it. Is it a movie that moves you to emotion, or one that blows your mind? No. Does it keep you entertained and enjoying it for 2 hours? Yes. The fact that the critics skewered it confuses me. It wasn’t the greatest film of all time, but it was ambitious, beautiful, and most importantly, ENTERTAINING. If Guardians of the Galaxy can get a rottentomatoes “fresh” meter of 89-93% this one deserves at least a 70%. I’m much more keen to buy this on blu-ray than Guardians despite a great fondness for Chris Pratt as Starlord.