Why I Saw It: The Wachowski's are still working off a lot of Matrix goodwill and even though I didn't like it much, Cloud Atlas was interesting enough to bring me back for more.
Cast: Mila Kunis is either the best or worst lead for this movie. She doesn't feel like she belongs with anything else in it. She's a square peg in a round hole in that way. Her character though, is the outside perspective on this all, so her not fitting is arguably the point. I'm still undecided on her. Channing Tatum fills out the role of action star as well as you'd expect. I'm going to go ahead and say that those two have no chemistry though. Let's get that out of the way right now. Eddie Radmayne is getting slammed by critics for his performance. I think he makes some very specific choices and they made sense for the movie. I wouldn't put it in his highlight real, but people should stop talking about "The Norbit Effect" and assuming it'll cost him an Oscar. Sean Bean gets a more prominent role than I expected, playing that Sean Bean role with a slight twist. Douglas Booth, Tuppence Middleton (really, please, try and sound more British with that name), Gugu Mbatha-Raw, and others round out a cast that's a little too big for a single movie.
Plot: Jupiter (Kunis) is a young woman with a crappy life as a house cleaner with her family. One day, in surgery, she is attacked by aliens and saved by a soldier named Caine Wise (Tatum). From there, we learn that she is the queen/owner of Earth due to a genetic miracle. The problem is that there's a powerful family, the Abrasaxes, who want to get the Earth from her and are willing to do very bad things for it. That's where Redmayne, Middleton, and Booth come in. They're the Abrasaxes. The majority of the movie is Jupiter trying to survive the efforts of that family. It's a very busy movie to a fault. I could've done without the whole subplot with Booth and focused on Redmayne as the central antagonist a lot more. As is, I think the biggest truths I can say about the plot is that it goes big and isn't subtle about it.
Elephant in the Room: But why are reviews so bad? Well, critics suck sometimes. They just do. At the same time, this movie is a tough sell. I'm reminded a lot of John Carter, another expensive SciFi action movie that couldn't find a way to market itself. It's very easy to look at Jupiter Ascending and only notice the glaring flaws. Redmayne's performance looks exponentially more ridiculous out of the context of the movie (and isn't great within it either). Kunis and Tatum have no chemistry. The script is not great. Most of the actors look a little silly with all the makeup and costumes. I'm here to say that there's a lot of things done well too. The Wachowskis build an original world and don't let up on it. It's a detailed world with depth to it. The characters are distinctive and the actors commit to their roles. That is so rare and refreshing to see these days. It should be lauded much more than it has been. The visual effects, no surprise, carry the movie. At times the movie is outright beautiful to look at. The Wachowskis still know how to stage a fight scene too. There's plenty to like in it if you want to find it.
To Sum Things Up:
I've said it before and I'll say it again, I respect ambition in a movie, and Jupiter Ascending has that in spades. The Wachowskis aimed to make a big, original movie, something that has becoming increasingly rare in the studio system, and succeeded in making something pretty and entertaining and technically impressive. It doesn't accomplish everything it sets out to. In fact, it is a very middle of the pack movie with problems to match all the things it does right in equal measure. Anyone who wants to go after this hard has every right to. Those problems though aren't enough to keep me from wanting to eventually see this again, which is more than I can say about a lot of the movies I see.
Verdict (?): Weakly Recommend
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