Jupiter ASScending

Last week I had pretty much nothing to do, so I decided to have a film-filled day. I went to the cinemas and firstly watched ‘The Imitation Game’ and it was just awesome, compelling story amazingly tied together with interesting characters, played by wonderful actors, it was a true masterpiece. But we’re not here to talk about that movie, we’re here because of ‘Jupiter Ascending’. I went into this Imax 3D screening to watch what I thought would be the Wachowskis’ big film since the Matrix, and oh Gods, how was I mistaken. Let’s not start this in bad note, so shall we talk about the good things, yeah?

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So there we have Jupiter Jones, portrayed by Mila Kunis, a russian immigrant who moved to the United States still as a child, and now clean houses together with her mother and aunt to help their family. Only, she also happens to have the same genes in the exact same order of the late Abrasax’s matriarch, being then the reincarnation of such. The Abrasax House is the alien family who rule the universe, they are the reason life on planets, like Earth, exits. They seed planets, so they can harvest them in order to obtain some sort of serum that helps them maintain their youth. The matriarch’s three children, Kalique (Tuppence Middleton), Titus (Douglas Booth) and Balem (Eddie Redmayne), the eldest,  are at war because of the inheritance. Everyone now is after Jupiter, because of her importance, since she is indeed entitled the universe. Jupiter is then almost killed by a group of aliens but gets rescued by Caine (Channing Tatum), a half-human, half-wolf ex-military fighter. And that’s their journey begins in order to save Earth from being harvested.

If you are familiar with the Wachowskis, you probably would get into this film knowing or at least hoping, for marvellous visual effects; And since they are who they are, and it is what it is, they deliver it to us. You will walk in and see absolutely stunning visuals, all of the effects - apart from some minor characters - are absolutely on point. Unfortunately, during some times you can clearly see the CGI and spot when something was filmed using the green screen. The idea is not that bad, it’s also nothing new, but it’s certainly not bad. Also, we were blessed with some awesome action scenes, and that’s it. That’s all the good things about this film.

The script uses a lot of perfect timing moments, a whole lot, way too many if I’m honest. Caine get’s rescued by his friend Stinger (Sean Bean) moments before he’s about to run out of oxygen; And talking about oxygen, it’s really hard to know when they are in space, on ships or if they need oxygen at all when on other planets. But back on the timing problem, Caine does not only get saved with perfect timing, he also happens to be the timing king, considering that he saves Jupiter, not once but incredible four times when she’s just about get killed or do something stupid. FOUR TIMES. I was shocked on how they portrayed Jupiter to be such a weak woman, specially with Lana writing this script with her brother. I’d assume she would’ve written a much strong female character, but that was not the case.

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As the story goes on, more and more elements are added to it, that neither get explained or seem to matter on for the storyline. Not to mention the stupid dialogues and funny scenes. If you’re still going to watch this/have watched it, the entire pilot elephant-guy scene, that’s what I’m on about, it’s just ridiculous. Something that kind of bothers me too is the uncreative characters names. Jupiter Jones, I get it, it’s a reference to Super heros (Peter Parker, Bruce Banner, etc.) since she’s supposed to be our heroine, but Caine and Stinger? Stinger because he’s half-bumblebee, and Caine because he’s half-wolf? Seriously?

Even though the film is shitty, Channing Tatum is actually pretty good on it. He plays his character just fine, he looks like he knows what he’s doing and he rules on the action scenes. On the same boat is also Sean Bean, who plays his character good, and really, we can’t blame neither of those guys for the film’s failure, they certainly did their best. Even though Sean Bean’s character doesn’t die, and that’s a real bummer (lol).

But then we have Mila Kunis, who was terribly mis-casted on this film. That’s all I can say really, she is playing this character who is being introduced to a bunch of new things, but somehow doesn’t have any emotions. She’s just there. I really don’t mind Mila Kunis at all, she’s a mediocre actress, who’s good in a certain types of films, and yes, she is absolutely gorgeous, but she just wasn’t the right person for this character at all.

Last but not least we have Oscar nominee, Eddie Redmayne, playing the main villain. And, oh Gods he was bad. I’m sorry Eddie, we know you can act alright, we know it, but what the hell was that? I don’t think it’s entirely his fault tho, this is probably how he was directed, but it was just wrong. We have a Eddie who apparently could’t speak normally so he whispered the whole time, unless he was kind of mad, then he would scream from the top of his lungs. His entire performance was just hilarious to watch, because it was impossible to take his character serious whatsoever.

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This film failed on a epic-romance-adventure story and it also failed on it’s small tries of humour. At the end of the day this movie has so many wrongs, the small amount of rights do not make up for it. If even after all this you still want to watch it, make sure you pay the price for the Imax 3D experience, so you will see all the amazing effects and visuals in the best possible way.

2.6 / 10