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Sixteen years ago, sibling directors the Wachowskis stunned audiences with their sharp and stylish sci-fi thriller, The Matrix. Since then, they’ve struggled to find the same mix of smart storytelling and jaw-dropping effects—and now they offer up a gorgeous disaster with their outer-space adventure Jupiter Ascending.
Jupiter Ascending stars Mila Kunis as Jupiter Jones, a young woman who helps her extended family pay the bills by cleaning the toilets of Chicago’s most fabulous homes. But her monotonous existence takes an unexpected turn when she ends up in the middle of a battle between ruthless alien creatures that have been hired to kill her and a genetically engineered hunter (Channing Tatum’s Caine) who’s been hired to save her. After she escapes, Jupiter learns that she’s somehow heir to a mind-boggling intergalactic inheritance, putting her at the center of three greedy siblings’ power struggle.
Really, though, it’s best not to think too hard about the story that plays out in this bizarre outer-space soap opera—because the longer you think about it, the more ridiculous it becomes. Of course, that doesn’t mean that it’s not already extremely ridiculous on the surface—because it is. It’s about as campy as they come, loaded with laughable one-liners and intergalactic technobabble that wouldn’t be any less understandable if it were spoken in a foreign language.
The directors seem to expect their audience simply to accept the story at face value, so they didn’t bother to make any of the explanations make any kind of sense whatsoever. And the more you think through it, the more you’ll notice the inconsistencies, the unnecessary subplots, and the sheer nonsense of it all.
Meanwhile, several members of the cast seem to be in a cutthroat competition to see who can be the most over-the-top. In the end, though, the trophy goes to Oscar frontrunner Eddie Redmayne, whose performance as one of the feuding siblings is so extreme that it’s sure to send waves of giggles through the audience every time he appears on-screen.
Fortunately, Jupiter Ascending isn’t a complete loss. It’s no big surprise that the latest adventure from this innovative directing duo is visually stunning. The otherworldly sets are spectacular; the effects are impressive, and Jupiter’s costumes could rival some of the most memorable red carpet looks. Sadly, Tatum doesn’t fare as well, with the makeup department’s inexplicably pointy ears and the costume department’s silly hoverboots working together make the star look perfectly peculiar. And even the most breathtaking eye-candy can’t make up for the film’s lazy writing and eye-rolling absurdity.
The Wachowskis definitely know how to produce a pretty movie, but they seem to have sacrificed everything else in the process. As a result, Jupiter Ascending is striking but nonsensical—a beautiful mess of painfully cheesy sci-fi action.
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