Jupiter Acending

Soooo... is it better to have peaked early in film than to never have peaked at all?  I haven't the foggiest, but it would be a solid question to ask Andy and Lana Wachowski (formerly known as the Wachowski Brothers).  Some close to this writer have suggested that the minds that arguably brought you the Matrix trilogy (although the first one was by far the best), seem to have done exactly that - peaked and fallen squarely off a steep precipice into the ever-widening abyss of movie-mediocrity.

VITALS

Andy and Lana Wachowski (The Matrix, Speed Racer, Cloud Atlas) - Writers/Directors
Mila Kunis (Black Swan, Third Person) - Jupiter Jones
Channing Tatum (21/22 Jump Street) - Caine Wise
Eddie Redmayne (My week with Marilyn, The Theory of Everything) - Balem Abraxas
Sean Bean (Lord of the Rings & Ned Stark in the Game of Thrones series) - Apini
Tuppence Middleton (Imitation Game) - Kalique Abraxas
Douglas Booth (Noah) - Titus Abraxas

IF YOU MUST KNOW:

Jupiter Jones (Kunis) is a young immigrant (by way of a boat from Russia - no joke).  Her father is some sort of astronomer and her mother does something else in Russia, blah blah blah... Pop dukes loves the Planet Jupiter, so he named his daughter after the planet much to the mother's chagrin.  In what must be the most random home invasion in the history of home invasions, pop dukes is killed over a brass telescope which appears to be the only thing of value in the whole apartment.  Fast forward, Jupiter grows up in the States and works with her mom and aunt cleaning houses.  She lives beyond her means and is trying desperately to figure out a way out of the life she hates (cleaning toilets of rich people and waking up at the b-crack of pre-dawn to do so).

Unbeknownst to her, it turns out she happens to be the potential heir to a huge interstellar estate.  Sweet, right?  But wait... a competitor has dispatched some mercenaries to shut off the possibility of Jupiter making any claims to it.  Sucks to be Jupiter.  Caine (Tatum), a human-canine hybrid, is tasked with tracking her down and dragging her back to through space to where she can stake her rightful claim to her inheritance from of cadre of ego-maniacal vampir-looking pale-faced relatives.

There's no helping this one.  Sometimes making something look cool is not enough to make it something watchable.  Jupiter Ascending was borderline unwatchable.  I had a crush on Mila Kunis since Black Swan... but... watching her walk weirdly down the hall in that space castle rockin her space stilettos in her space gown was disturbing.  Zero cool points awarded. What kind of directions were the Wachowskis giving when they filmed that segment - "Mila, try this, I want you to be as awkward as humanly possible.  Remember... walk like your feet hurt and keep your shoulders as high and close together as possible.  Go..."

Jupiter Ascending is what the Fifth Element would have been if you subtracted everything that was entertaining from it.  Eddie Redmayne (recent Oscar winner) is too good for this kind of ga'bidge (as my pops would have called it). Watching this latest Wachowski debacle, I got the distinct impression that somebody slipped a little ganga in the Kraft foods on set. The look on Redmayne's face is indicative of how this movie felt.

There were some charming segments in this movie that made me want to like it more, but they weren't charming enough to bring me to that point.  The best part of the movie was the fight choreography.  They did a great job making a lot of the fight scenes look pretty good and even the air-skating thing that went on entirely too long was visually enthralling.

This is the kind of movie that the audience not only does not applaud when the credits roll, but they silently applaud THAT the credits are finally rolling.  Sorry, Wachowskis, but this isn't the next Matrix.  That said, I would strongly recommend watching this on Netflix when it drops in a hot second.  It's just lame enough to watch on a slow Tuesday.  And if you're a movie buff... (SPOILER ALERT),  there's definitely a Soylent Green aspect that cannot be missed, but should have been.

IMTHATDUDE gives Jupiter Ascending: 1

RATING SYSTEM:

5 = You should be about halfway to the theatre by now… Well… GET!
4 = Definitely worth the bread. Niiice.
3 = I won’t cuss anybody out and demand my paper back.
2 = Somewhere SOUTH of under-whelmed./I know it has a pulse, but…
1 = Not a good look. They played me AND I played myself.