directed and written by the Wachowskis
I was one of the few people I know who, when Star Wars: Episode I came out in 1999, was more blown away by Andy and then-Larry Wachowski's then-groundbreaking sci-fi/martial arts hybrid The Matrix.
It was that initial affection for their work that enabled me to sit through two laborious sequels to The Matrix, and the DVD of their infamous anime adaptation Speed Racer. Such was my admiration for that one movie that I was able to forgive them three consecutive transgressions before deciding to pass on the sprawling, ambitious but widely ignored 2012 film Cloud Atlas, a complicated film that not even certified box-office titan Tom Hanks could save from commercial oblivion.
That notwithstanding, I was so awed by the trailer for Jupiter Ascending, however, that I was ready to jump on the Wachowski train yet again. I walked in hoping that they had rediscovered the mojo that had made The Matrix one of the most engaging films I had seen in my post-college youth.
Jupiter Ascending is the story of Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) a Russian immigrant to the United States who lives and works in Chicago with her family, who run a house-cleaning business. She discovers, to her shock, that she is actually the heir to an intergalactic empire, the spoils of which are being fought over by three alien siblings, Balem (Eddie Redmayne), Kalique (Tuppence Middleton) and Titus (Douglas Booth). Jupiter is apparently the reincarnation of their mother, the matriarch of the house of Abrasax, and as a result, each of the siblings wants to get hold of her for their own purposes. Balem wants her dead outright, while Kalique and Titus have slightly different plans. Kalique hires a team of trackers, while Titus hires one, Caine Wise (Channing Tatum) a former soldier. Caine gets to Jupiter first, but it is only after a series of harrowing chases, double-crosses and meetings with the siblings that Jupiter finally realizes why the three of them want the planet Earth as badly as they do, and realizes that she is the only thing standing between them and the end of the human life on Earth.
Now, the good news is that the film is utterly gorgeous. From John Toll's exquisite cinematography to the sumptuous production design that was drawn from a myriad of inspirations to some truly amazing special effects, the Wachowski siblings have made it clear that they have lost none of their flair for the visually spectacular. I'll grant that constantly "dusky" backdrops made it easier for the VFX teams to hide flaws in the computer-generated imagery, but that detracted very little from the overall look of the film, which, to my mind anyway, made the very best use of camera technology that Hollywood currently has to offer. The hurricane-choked atmosphere surrounding Balem's ship, when viewed from space, is stunning; it's basically like a painting. The movie is simply wonderful to behold.
(Spoilers)
The problem, however, that the story of this movie, the Wachowski's first all-new, original intellectual property since The Matrix, distinctly feels like a rehash of that movie in some very specific and crucial ways. Jupiter, like Keanu Reeves' Neo, learns that the world is not quite what she thought it was. Also, the people of earth, like they were in the post-apocalyptic world of The Matrix, are cattle here; they just don't know it. In The Matrix, humans were batteries for robots. Here, we're basically beauty care products. This is not an exaggeration.
(Spoilers)
It seems Warner Brothers asked the Wachowskis to come up with something new, and apparently the best they could do was recycle their one really good idea. It doesn't help that actors like Eddie Redmayne probably spent most of their energy to keep from laughing out loud reciting some truly risible dialogue. Not only that, but the pacing, for reasons I cannot quite understand, is simply terrible. The movie's two plus hours feel more like three.
That's not to say the film doesn't have anything else going for it; apart from the eye-popping if occasionally generic action sequences, most of which feature Tatum's Wise in action, there's a highly entertaining sequence in which Jupiter gets a taste of intergalactic bureaucracy when she accomplishes the necessary documents to establish her title to Earth, one in which renowned director Terry Gilliam actually has a pretty prominent role. It's a hilarious sequence that, quite, honestly, belongs in a better movie than this one was.
Considering the critical thrashing and box-office bitch-slapping this film has received, one wonders just how many more blank checks, if at all, Warner Brothers (or any other studio, for that matter) will be willing to write for these two.
6/10
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