Jupiter Ascending

Released:  February 6^th, 2015

Rated:  PG-13

Distributor:  Warner Bros.

Starring:  Mila Kunis, Channing Tatum, Eddie Redmayne, Sean Bean

Directed by:  Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski

Written by:  Andy Wachowski, Lana Wachowski

Personal Bias Alert:  likes big sci-fi spectacles, likes the Wachowskis

4.5 of 10

            Excess.  Excess is the Wachowski’s enemy, and they often lose to it.  Their first film, Bound, is known for excess violence, Speed Racer for excess color, V for Vendetta for excess words, and The Matrix Reloaded for excess raves.  By that trend, Jupiter Ascending fits right into their catalogue, delivering what is a decent story that’s done in by an excess of metaphors, world building, and general oddities.

            Jupiter (Mila Kunis) is a young, broke immigrant who discovers that Earth is but a small part of a big, well-populated universe when a rich dynasty she unwittingly belongs to tries to kill her to protect their inheritance.  Saving her repeatedly throughout the film is Channing Tatum’s Caine, a wolf-human hybrid who spends much of the movie skating through the air on hover shoes.  Did you notice anything familiar in that summary?  You should, because for all its window dressings, Jupiter Ascending is a tale as old as time:  people fighting over wealth.  Structurally, it’s laid out like many a classic fantasy stories where the main character discovers and accepts their newfound power.  And the woman doesn’t really get to do much beside get saved by a man that she, of course, falls in love with.

            Even with the annoyingly stereotypical gender dynamics, it’s hard to argue that this plot setup doesn’t work.  It’s so familiar from the first installments of Star Wars, Harry Potter, and pretty much every sci-fi/fantasy series that it slides down like butter, easy and delicious.  The problem is, the Wachowski’s try to cram in so much half-baked commentary and needlessly complex world building that the whole thing becomes bloated and difficult to swallow.  Sidetracks that seem to exist only to discuss capitalism, predeterminism, and to cause general boredom leaves viewers wishing the Wachowski’s would just stick in the reel of Ferris Bueller’s advice on -isms and leave it at that.  It’d save everyone a lot of time and leave a leaner, more sure-fire plot.  Plus, we’d all get to watch some of Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.

            What you can’t knock the Wachowskis for is delivering a bad-looking film.  The trailer, which has been kicking around for months after a delayed release, promised fantastical new worlds, completely realized by two of the best visual directors working today.  Jupiter Ascending certainly delivers, giving viewers a planet-hopping extravaganza complete with strange outfits, spaceship dogfights, and a flying reptilian/dinosaur creature.  There’s actually many strange-looking aliens, again a bit too much, but at least the Wachowski’s aren’t short-changing the visual splendor.  It is, for this reason, worth seeing in theaters without the 3-D.  3-D will only muddle the image of some crisply rendered CGI, denying you the pleasure of the Wachowski’s meticulous eye for detail.

            Forty years from now, if I had to sit down with a young film buff and explain why the hell the Wachowski’s matter, I’d probably show them Jupiter Ascending.  It’s not their best nor their worst work, but it might be the most emblematic of what they do as filmmakers.  They take classic genre storylines, spruce them up with lavish, slightly over-the-top visuals, and are never dissuaded from telling stories exactly how they want them to be.  They brush off people like me who say their movies are too overdone, they invent new camera techniques to achieve the exact shots they want, and they never pander to Hollywood’s status quo.  It’s important to remember that Jupiter Ascending is a big-budget film that’s neither a sequel nor an adaptation, an oddity that few can get funding for in today’s Hollywood.  It takes people like the Wachowski’s, with a firm belief in what they do to make these kinds of films, even if their films are a bit of a mess, Hollywood would be a lesser place without them pushing us forward.

            Other Notes:

Ø  The performances were universally solid, even Eddie Redmayne.  He delivered exactly what was asked of him.

Ø  The romance between Kunis and Tatum wasn’t given the time to work.

Ø  SPOILER ALERT:  Sean Bean doesn’t die.