When Jupiter Ascending came out, the marketing looked interesting, and since it was from the folks behind The Matrix films, I thought, hmm, why not. But this time around (and a few previous times) the Wachowski siblings seemed to have launched crap.
And before I had committed money to the film in theaters, early reviews came out and as I remember it, paraphrased, why do studios keep giving them money?
In this case, Jupiter Ascending was that film that sparked such review statements, along with a Rotten Tomatoes score of 26%, or a 5.4 out of IMDb users, who are usually a much more forgiving demographic. There are two great parts to this movie. The movie poster below and when the credits started rolling, signifying that my suffering was over.
The film synopsis:
Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) was born under signs that predicted future greatness, but her reality as a woman consists of cleaning other people's houses and endless bad breaks. Caine (Channing Tatum), a genetically engineered hunter, arrives on Earth to locate her, making Jupiter finally aware of the great destiny that awaits her: Jupiter's genetic signature marks her as the next in line for an extraordinary inheritance that could alter the balance of the cosmos.
Sometimes when a particular star is in a film, at times fans can reap the benefits. But not so for fans of either Kunis or Tatum.
The Wachowski's made this film and pretty much set an odd tone of showing us earth and other alien galaxies and all their woes. One alien reminded me of a very soft-spoken, creepy kind of child abuser. Another, the all-star kind of take-what-I-want kind of dick. And of course Jupiter's world, where her life sucks.
We're introduced to all the story pieces in the first act, and the ensuing, overly long second and third acts just outright tortured us with action-porn.
That's the best way I can describe it. It was like the Wachowski's were kids in a sandbox playing war with their toys and after one battle was fought out, they quickly picked up new pieces and had the same battle again. And again. And again.
Neither Kunis nor Tatum could save this film, and that's even with Tatum running around on his space-roller-blades shirtless for most of the third act.
I only watched the entire film because I had committed some time to it already and I was laying in bed and decided to leave it on to go to sleep to. Alas, I did not pass out and got to watch the whole thing.
Oh goody. Here are some sample opinions:
Jupiter Ascending' is too self-serious a movie to offer silly escapism, and too silly a movie to take at all seriously. Full review
Christopher Orr·The Atlantic
The flimsy plot sucks at the dregs of The Matrix well. Full review
Peter Travers·Rolling Stone
A garish, "Phantom Menace"-esque space opera in which a lowly Russian cleaning lady (Mila Kunis) is born with DNA identical to that of the most powerful woman in the universe. Full review
Peter Debruge·Variety
If someone out there likes this, so be it.
And as far as any studio giving the Wachowski's more money, well, they're now pumping out the Netflix series, Sense8. Which explains how I felt like I did about that long, drawn out show that takes forever to move the primary story along.
http://www.cinemastatic.org/2016/04/sense8-first-impressions-from-cinema.html
Otherwise, they don't seem to have anything else on the horizon for now.
Jupiter Ascending on Amazon.
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