Jupiter Ascending (2015)

Jupiter Ascending tells the story of how Jupiter Jones – a young poor Russian woman who cleans the homes of her wealthy neighbours – discovers she is the heiress of the Abrasax family, a powerful intergalactic nobility. However, Jupiter is quickly embroiled in the deadly Abrasax rivalry and must protect the inhabitants of Earth from the heirs of this ancient and destructive family.

Overall Review Score

2 out of 10

Review

Jupiter Ascending is 2015 sci-fi action adventure. Despite the film having an all-star cast, including Channing Tatum, Mila Kunis, Sean Bean, and Eddie Redmayne and being directed by the Wachowskis, it struggles out of the gate to be engaging or entertaining. The film is meant to be a 127-minute intergalactic battle for dominance of earth through a ‘space opera’, i.e. melodramatic space warefare with a romantic sub-plot. However, within the first few minutes it is clear that the Wachowskis have made terrible mistake with this film. Instead of being treated to a fast past, gritty and colourful intergalactic outing, the audience are treated to an overtly long, unengaging and monotone whirlwind tour of sci-fi clichés and elements / plot lines performed to better affect in other films. The characters come across as lifeless and one dimensional and the locations – while colourful – come across as poorly conceived and help emphasis the films many failings. While the films special effects help to redeem the film and are initially entertaining to watch they quickly become stale, as they follow a formulaic and predictable mantra i.e. Caine (Channing Tatum) zooming back and forth on his ‘flying space gliders / boots’, engaging in a fight and then saving Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis). Overall, Jupiter Ascending had the potential to be good, and while its special effects stop the film being a complete flop, the film contains very little to entertain, engaging or excite the audience - it is a film that succumbed to its own hype and just couldn’t deliver. Ultimately, it is a film worth avoiding.

Reviewer 1's score & comments:

Score: 1 out of 10

Comments:

Despite being visually appealing Jupiter Ascending is basically a 122 minute film that, despite being written and directed by Andy and Lana Wachowski, steals scenes from multiple other sci-fi movies but hopes that the audience is so entranced in the films vibrant colours and artistic zeal that they won’t notice. As such, the Wachowski’s should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves as it is painfully obvious what they have tried to recreate with this action, adventure sci-fi film. Additionally, Jupiter Ascending cannot even impress the audience with its storyline, as quite frankly there isn’t one, or entertain them with meaningful characters, as almost all of them are as engaging as a wet paper bag.

Reviewer 2's score & comments:

Score: 3 out of 10

Comments:

Jupiter Ascending is a film that embodies Isaac Newton’s famous proclamation that ‘what goes up must come down’. The film starts relatively well and builds up the audiences expectations by telling the story of how Jupiter Jones’s father was murdered and how the rivalry between members of Abrasax family is so bad that the littlest spark can set them off. However, the film violently descends into an incoherent, mind bogglingly bad mess as the characters put on silly accents, undertake nearly every sci-fi clichés imaginable, and alienates the audience by engaging in the same monotonous tasks scene after scene. While the film implodes and sucks the life out of the audience quicker than a supernova, the film does have one redeeming feature. Its special effects are visually appealing, fast-paced and equally colourful. However, due to over use, these quickly become tiresome. Overall, Jupiter Ascending is a poorly conceived, poorly directed, and poorly acted film. It is so bad that Eddie Redmayne puts on a silly accent and Channing Tatum modifies his facial structure and uses a goatee, assumingly so the audience will not recognise or associate them with this shockingly poor production. Jupiter Ascending had all the ingredients to be a decent film but, ultimately, it fails to deliver – so much so I was left wondering if the film should be renamed Jupiter Pretending, as this must have been a joke…as its inconceivable that this film was designed to be serious or entertaining.

#action #adventure #scifi #channingtatum #seanbean #eddieredmayne