Movie review: Jupiter Ascending

Hi!

So, I’ve recently watched Jupiter Ascending –  a new movie by The Wachowskis siblings and this is going to be my review.

IMDb summary: In a bright and colorful future, a young destitute caretaker gets targeted by the ruthless son of a powerful family, who lives on a planet in need of a new heir, so she travels with a genetically engineered warrior to the planet in order to stop his tyrant reign.

First of all, I am the fan of The Wachowskis. To my mind, The Matrix is a masterpiece but, more importantly, their another movie – Cloud Atlas – is my favorite film ever. There hasn’t been another movie which made me think that hard and analyze every little detail. It’s actually the motion picture that got me interested in movie reviewing in the first place. Having said that, I didn’t particularly like this movie and I desperately wanted to like it just because it was getting such bad reviews…Mine isn’t going to be better..

To begin with, let’s start with the things I liked: setting, visuals and acting.

Setting

The setting and the whole world of the movie reminded me of one of the worlds from the Cloud Atlas (Cloud Atlas is set in 6 different time periods). Jupiter Ascending resembled the futuristic Neo Seoul, 2144 world from that film. Although, it had a more of a cosmic vibe.

Visuals

The Wachowskis always had astonishing visuals and this movie was no exception. The landscapes were breathing and the action sequences exciting and fun even if they were a little bit unbelievable and too long in some parts.

Acting

I believe that all of the actors did a great job. Mila Kunis was great: I love her as an actress both in comedy (Friends with Benefits) and drama (Black Swan). 

Channing Tatum was also good in his role as a human/wolf/angel..However, I had no idea why he got those wings in the end…

Douglas Booth and Tuppence Middleton were also functional in their roles. I have never heard anything about this actress but I know a lot about Douglas and have practically watched all of his movies.

Sean Bean as another human/wolf/angel was also good. Though, as a GoT fan and someone who spends a lot of time on the Internet, I couldn’t stop thinking if he was going to die at some point. 

Eddie Redmayne was the only questionable character in the story. Why did he speak like that? His voice only detracted my attention from the film. BTW, I was really happy when he won an Oscar because I loved him in The Theory of Everything and I even believe that he should have been nominated in 2012 for Les Miserables. But he won now, so there is no reason to be sad about past snubs.

One last note: the movie had a lot of other small characters because The Wachowskis love to have a lot of character (just watch Cloud Atlas). I was happy to see James D’Arcy, who started in Cloud Atlas and recently been in Agent Carter, in the movie too – he made make a short  cameo.

Now, let’s move on to the bad stuff…

Story

The story of the movie was interesting, don’t get me wrong, but it was just way too complicated. The mythology was so rich  and they went into details so much but they never fully explained anything. As a result, you could hardly follow the plot and you weren’t interested in the movie or the faith of the characters. They also did a crap job of setting up a loving relationship between Mila’s character’s family and Mila’s character – I had no idea why she wanted to save them because they have been complete a****les to her.

In addition, that love story was a complete push… They have know each other for 2 days and they have fallen completely in love? I do not believe that at all. But, that’s a movie love, I guess?

Jokes were also kinda mehh: “I love dogs” and that period pad…Really? Only She’s a man with Amanda Bynes knows how to make period jokes.

Themes

Though the story was difficult to comprehend and follow, I have found a couple of themes between the lines, which interested me. First one is time: I loved the quote “Time is the single most precious commodity in the universe“. This saying is so true and so relevant to our modern society. Other themes were capitalism and never stopping consumerism – also great reminders of the contemporary world. The last idea, which sparked my interested, was that our genes have our souls inside them…I love when movies explain religious facts as science facts. Maybe because my favorite movie genre is sci-fi, followed closely by comic book/superhero movies…

All in all, the movie was watchable but not remember-able. I would only recommend it to hard core sci-fi fans and the niche fans of The Wachowskis. 

Trailer: Jupiter Ascending trailer

Rate: 3/5

Photos: trailer screenshots