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| Warner Bros. |
With Jupiter Ascending, the Wachowski’s beg
us to come to another world with them. They put out a hand and attempt to
entice us with extravagant set pieces and fast moving action sequences. When
that doesn’t draw you they add big musical pieces as a back drop to everything.
While the music doesn’t necessarily hurt, it doesn’t help either so a message
that is supposed to make an action film much deeper is attempted. Even with all
of this, it still isn’t convening enough to take the epic journey they offer
you or even buy that it is an epic journey in the first place.
I don’t think it’s off
the wall to say that Jupiter Ascending’s premise
is half way interesting. The message with in that premise concerns time, how
valuable it is and how much we rely on others and how we need them in order to survive.
The problem is that after this premise is revealed, these themes really aren’t
explored. In Jupiter Ascending, earth and several other planets are just
locations for humans to develop until their genes are ready to be ‘harvested’
and used as some type of rejuvenating substance by the House of Abrasax, a
powerful alien dynasty.
When the head of the
House of Abrasax, the mother of Balem (Eddie Redmayne), Kalique (Tuppence
Middleton) and Titus (Douglas Booth), dies these three children each become set
on obtaining her inheritance, which includes earth, for them self’s. This
dispute may start with three individuals but the character of Kalique seems
rather pointless as she is really only used to show how the genes from the
harvested humans are used and in doing so, add a bit of nudity. After that she
is nowhere to be found for the long remainder of the films running time.
So with earth being the
desired planet, Mila Kunis’s character comes into play. From Russian decent and
named after late father’s favorite planet, Jupiter (Kunis) is seen cleaning
houses in the city of Chicago with her mother Aleska (Maria Doyle Kennedy).
Maybe one of the biggest mysteries of the entire film is how Jupiter speaks
with an American accent when both her parents were and are Russian and everyone
she lives with speaks with a thick Russian accent. It’s a detail that shouldn’t
bother me but does.
In need of money,
Jupiter accepts an offer from her cousin Vladie (Kick Gurry) that would require
her to sell her eggs. As this process is about to happen, Balem orders
golem-looking aliens disguised as doctors and nurses to kill her. Why does
Balem want to kill her? Jupiter
apparently is a genetic reincarnation of his mother, meaning that she has the
opportunity to attain the title to earth.
Who prevents Jupiter
from being killed? C-Tates! Caine (Channing Tatum), a genetically engineered,
half wolf, half human solider saves Jupiter. Upon learning of her background,
Caine takes Jupiter to get the title to earth, a process that turn out to be
the most entertaining sequence of the film thanks to a fun turn from Samuel
Barnett as a robot called Advocate Bob and unfortunately the best performance
of the film in the form of a cameo by Terry Gilliam.
Nothing against Gilliam
but he is on screen no more than a minute. Dominating screen time, Kunis and
Tatum are given little to work with as far as dialogue and character depth goes
but really, performance wise, do not do much to help manners. Kunis goes from
one line to the next, just keeping things moving, doing no more than that.
Tatum starts out using some kind of dialect that differs from his norm but for
some reason this kind of goes away after a while. The role doesn’t call for it
but he would be lot more enjoyable if he was let lose a little and allowed to embrace
how silly his character and the story is.
The same could be said
for Eddie Redmayne as the films chief villain. A valid argument could be made
that he is easily over the top but over the top for all the wrong reasons. I
have no clue who thought it was a good idea to give him a whispering, sickly-like
voice but it doesn’t work as it doesn’t allow Balem to be something to fear for
the characters in the film or all that entertaining for the audience. You have an
immensely talented actor in the form of Redmayne in a villainous role and
you’re going to put a leash on him? Let him go off, results would include a
better performance, character and film. Just doesn’t make much since to me.
May be they didn’t want
him to take away from the action sequences. This would be understandable if
they were actually good but instead they may be more of a yawn than several of
the characters. Sequence after sequence of battles that are merely characters chasing
each other in the air in hover blades or of the sort accompanied by sounds, as
if they were pulled strait out Star Wars,
that refuse to let your ear drums go in the
background. And when I say Stars Wars,
I mean the prequels which also seem to have an influence on the visual effects
and a few of the costume designs. The music is also very similar and one of the
few bright spots of the film but because what is happening can’t match the epic
feel of the music, its effect is hindered.
When watching it, it’s
difficult to ever find yourself in the position of getting into Jupiter Ascending as it fails to do
anything that well. The characters are weak, the action sequences are
unoriginal and the themes that come from the premise are barely explored. With
it being a product of the Wachowski’s, all of this is surprising given how
films such as The Matrix and Cloud Atlas were able to execute in these above categories,
but because Jupiter Ascending cannot,
it becomes a sci-fi flick that can be easily and willingly forgotten.
Grade:
D+
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