Skip to main content

Jupiter Ascending

Starring: Mila Kunis, Channing Tatum, Sean Bean, and Eddie Redmayne
Directed by: Andy and Lana Wachowski
Screenplay by: Andy and Lana Wachowski

     From the creators of your favorite mind blowing trilogy that you can't stop referencing whenever you can, The Matrix, comes a brand new movie, you might just totally forget about.
     Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) is a cleaning lady just trying to make a living.  When Caine Wise (Channing Tatum) comes along, everything changes.  She is thrust into a whole new world with a whole new understanding of who she really is.
     The earth is part of an industry, led by the Abrasax family (from an entirely different planet of humans), which harvests worlds with intelligent life so humans can live essentially forever.  Balem Abrasax (Eddie Redmayne) is the heir to Earth, which means he can harvest it whenever he wants to.  Caine is aware of what the Abrasax family wants to do so it is up to him to stop them.  In order to do that, he must show Jupiter this new and overwhelming life and have her claim her royalty to Earth (although reluctantly), which means that harvesting the Earth can be averted.
      The plot is very underdeveloped, and the world is not developed enough.  It's not bad sci-fi, it's just sci-fi done badly.  Jupiter wants nothing to do with Caine Wise and any of this stuff that she is thrown into.  It is as if she could simply go home and the movie would go on without her.  It's hard to take her seriously throughout the movie as well.  She just blindly accepts what is happening around her and doesn't ask too many questions.  Normally in a movie like this, the protagonist asks tons of questions about what is happening around him or her, but not in Jupiter Ascending.  This forces the viewer to simply go along with it too.  As a result, as the movie goes on, it goes from bad to worse.
      As you may know, Eddie Redmayne just won the Oscar for Best Actor for his role in The Theory of Everything.  He is a far more talented actor than he demonstrates in this film, and while he is fine in his role, the film is in my mind a waste of his talent.  The same goes for Mila Kunis.  Jupiter Ascending is not the kind of movie you go to see for great acting, rather you see it for the good fun the movie is going to be.  Mila Kunis and Eddie Redmayne are not the best choices for this movie even though they still put on decent performances.
      If you've seen earlier films of the Wachowskis', you might know that movies like The Matrix are extremely awesome.  Jupiter Ascending sadly falls way short of being even close to awesome.  This is a film that had so much potential yet fell way short of what it could have been.  It's one of those movies that is so bad it's actually hilarious.
     I give Jupiter Ascending a D.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

The Magnificent Seven

Starring: Denzel Washington, Chris Pratt, Ethan Hawke, Vincent D'Onofrio, Byung-hun Lee, Manuel Garcia-Rulfo, Martin Sensmeier, Haley Bennett, and Peter Sarsgaard Directed by: Antoine Fuqua Written by: Richard Wenk and Nic Pizzolatto      Remakes are funny things.  They can go either way.  On one hand, they can be like last year's Mad Max: Fury Road, a film that critics and audiences adore; a film that will live on as a cinematic masterpiece.  Remakes can also go in the direction of this year's rendition of Ben-Hur , one that critics and audiences will likely forget.       The Magnificent Seven some might say is an unnecessary remake.  It's a remake of an original that's based on another film, Akira Kurosawa's 1954 classic,  Seven Samurai, in which seven samurai soldiers are hired by a town to keep them safe from raiding bandits.  This time, there are no raiding bandits, and there are not seven sword-wielding soldi...

Don Jon

Starring: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Scarlett Johansson, Julianne Moore, Glenne Headly, Brie Larson, and Tony Danza Directed and written by: Joseph Gordon-Levitt     To the gentlemen with significant others, clear your internet history BEFORE you see this movie with them.     Jon Martello (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) has an interesting life.  He cares about only a few things; his apartment, family, church, friends, girls, and porn, especially the porn.  He's nicknamed "Don" because he hooks up with the most attractive girls every weekend.  One night at the club, he meets Barbara (Scarlett Johansson).  She's different from all the other girls Jon hooks up with.  She wants more than just a happy ending one night, meaning Jon's going to have to change his game if he wants to get with her.  And as much as he likes her, he likes his porn even more.  She hates that he watches porn, so something's going to have to give.     Don Jon is ...

Flight

Starring: Denzel Washington, Don Cheadle, John Goodman, and Bruce Greenwood Directed by: Robert Zemeckis Screenplay by: John Gatins       For those of you who have any fear of flying, even the tiniest fear, you will never want to fly on an airplane again after seeing this film.       Captain Whip Whitaker (Denzel Washington) saves a commercial airplane from a truly horrific crash, in which only a few people are killed.  Almost everyone survives, including himself.  The stunt he pulls to save the plane is nothing short of a miracle, but an investigation into the crash reveals something that could send Whitaker to prison.  Not only is he going to be responsible for the people who were killed in the crash (which will send him to prison on manslaughter charges), but he was also found to be drinking the night before and the morning of the flight.       The actual plane crash takes place only twenty minutes or so...