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| More like Jupiter ASScending. Ha-ha I'm so clever. |
Every time I visit Malaysia, I always go out of my way to try and watch as many movies as I can, whether or not they're good or bad. Why? Movie tickets are extremely cheap in Malaysia and there are plenty of options to choose from!
At any rate, I figured 'Hey, why not check out that new sci-fi flick by the Wachowski brothers? Jupiter Ascending was it? Oh boy, I bet it'll be TERRIBLE'.
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| Eddie Redmayne (WHO?) plays as the "villainous" Balem Abrasax. The only thing scary about him is his terrible acting. Well, that and his 'menacing' voice. |
Well dear reader, it can be PAINFULLY mediocre. Now there's not a lot of hype behind this movie, and that's understandable, the only trailer I saw made it seem like a pretty decent sci-fi movie with great spaceship designs and space spectacles to behold...but as soon as the dialogue was shown off, dear god, I wanted to cut my ears off. With that being said, I don't expect many people to actually read this review, but hey, it doesn't hurt to try right?
Anyway, enough rambling, let's get onto the movie.
Jupiter Ascending stars Mila Kunis as Jupiter Jones and Channing Tatum as Caine Wise. Perhaps the only names I'll remember from the movie as I write this review. The rest of the actors are...well...forgettable. Including Sean Bean, which is a massive shame. Perhaps the biggest twist in the movie is that he ACTUALLY takes on a role where he doesn't die! The film revolves around Jupiter, a regular girl living a less than regular life, cleaning toilets for a living with her Russian family, trying to make ends meet. The movie begins with a very cliché prologue that contained exposition about how Jupiter's mother and father met, how she was born and how she was 'bound for great things'. It's like every teenage movie opening rolled into one!
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| "You fell in love with me because I saved you that one time and have nothing interesting to say what-so-ever?" "Yes, and because you're so misunderstood and I know you have a soft side" "Ok, cool" Basic summary of the "romance" in the movie. |
Jupiter eventually learns, through the help of the strong and silent(ish) Caine Wise, that she belongs to a royal bloodline that stretches far into the universe. She also learns that the human race began in space, and that Earth was simply a farm of sorts for the big baddies to harvest once the population reaches an unsustainable point. While she's being told this (through some incredibly cringe-worthy exposition) there is a bit of an internal power struggle between the Abrasax family, the family that's in charge of...well...everything. They also happen to be the brothers and sister of Jupiter...well, to an extent. I don't actually know, the movie doesn't do a very good job what-so-ever trying to explain certain important plot points, which is strange considering the amount of exposition the writers decided to nudge into the script.
Long story short, Jupiter Ascending is a film about a young woman learning that she's actually much more than some lowlife on Earth. A young woman who's thrust into a series of extraordinary events that make her less than ordinary life much for extraordinary. It's a half-assed love story with almost no chemistry between the two main characters. It's a half-assed science fiction movie that fails to appeal to even the most casual watcher. It's a half-assed story overall. I mean, for petes sake, there's so many unexplained plot points in the movie that I left the theatre feeling even more confused than while I was sitting there watching the entire mess play out in front of me. Not only that, Jupiter Ascending doesn't even attempt to make its universe interesting. Like I've mentioned before, it's like all of those cliché teen movies all rolled into one extremely mediocre package.
Its plot is also a great example of poor pacing. I had trouble keeping up with what was going on because everything was happening so fast. Characters would constantly be introduced and given very little screen-time to develop, story-arcs (if you could even call them that) were thrown around everywhere that I didn't know what information was important, and the general chemistry of characters on screen ranged from bland to terribly unbelievable. The only characters given a ton of screen time was Caine and Jupiter, and even they had trouble being something relevant. Hell, the villains were so poorly done that I don't even care to remember their motives or personalities. The only way to describe them would be "power hungry space CEO siblings".
But hey, maybe I'm being too strict, maybe I should try and find some kind of positive point for this film...let me see...
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| Alright... |
Well, the special effects were decent. Spaceships actually looked large in scale and the little fighter jets looked super cool and appealed to the mecha fan in me...but that's about it really. It seemed like the Wachowski brothers blew their budget all on the spaceship designs and effects but couldn't keep it consistent throughout the rest of the movie. Fight scenes looked cheap, actions scenes looked incredibly plastic, and the make-up and costume department just screamed of boring, unimaginative designs.
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| You have my curiosity.... |
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| ...And now you have my- |
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| OOOH you just lost it all |
Wow, even when I could think of a positive point, there are at least a couple of negatives to cancel it out.
In general, I think Jupiter Ascending could have had potential. It's not a HORRIBLE film by far, it's totally watch-able if you have an hour and a half to kill and want to turn your brain off for that time. It's a dumb movie that will entertain you for a short amount of time, and just like the characters of the film, you'll quickly forget all about it and move along with your life.
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| No...please...stop |
Verdict: 2/5
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