Director: The Wachowski's
Starring: Channing Tatum, Mila Kunis, Eddie Redmayne, James D'Arcy, Douglas Boothe, Sean Bean
Rating: Rated PG13 for some violence, sequences of sci-fi action, some suggestive content and partial nudity.
In a bright and colorful future, a young destitute caretaker gets targeted by a ruthless son of a powerful family that live on a planet in need of a new heir, so she travels with a genetically engineered warrior to the planet in order to stop his tyrant reign.
Postives:
This is gonna be very breif. Looking back at "Jupiter Ascending" it is hard to find too many postivies with this movie. Visually the film looks good, in the year 2015 its nothing that blows me away but it does look good in the vein of being stylish. It has the feel of how the Star Wars prequels felt with a bunch of CGI worlds inhabited by strange creatures. If there is one thing the Wachowski's can do its film visuals.
The acting of the film was also servicable. Nobody stole the show but for the most part the acting was fine. Channing Tatum and Mila Kunis were servicable as the leads. I do feel anyone could have played the part, and maybe even someone with more talent than Kunis could have played her part. The supporting cast which featured Sean Bean and Douglas Boothe were also fine but there one person I am deliberately leaving off for my negatives.
Negatives:
Like I said the postives would be brief, this is where everything else in "Jupiter Asecnding" belongs. The biggest complaint I had with this movie is how poorly written it is. The story is extremely lackluster. After the initial opening sequence I spent the majority of the 2hr. 7min. runtime checking my watch and going to the bathroom.
In this great big world that the Wachowski's have created, a part of me has to wonder why this is the story they decided to tell. The story of a Russian Immigrant who discovers she is royalty seems below something that the people who created the Matrix would develop. Also you do not care for any of the characters. They give you a lot of exposition about Tatum's character but at the end of the day there is a disconnect between the audience and the character. They also have an Earth storyline with Kunis's family that felt forced and out of place. They did not add anything to the overall story and felt like time filler instead of important plot pieces.
The romance between Tatum and Kunis also feels forced. The two have no chemistry and what brings them together feels really quick and you get the idea that Kunis would have fallen in love with the first guy to give her any attention. They treat her character like a damsel in distress to be saved by Tatum every 15 minutes and that somehow adds to her having feelings for him. There are just no likable characters in this film and that is slowly on the shoulders of the Wachowski's writing.
Now the person I saved for last is Eddie Redmayne. Eddie Redmayne is being nominated for an Oscar later this month and after this performance you start to question his validity as an actor. This is hands down one of the most obxnious acting performances I have ever had the displeasure of viewing. He does this voice of muttering under his breath the entire film and all you are asking for is mercy and for him to shut up. The way he plays the character is just infuriating because it did not need to be played that way. He could have just played it like a normal villain. He proved he has talent so it makes less sense that he would play the character the way he did.
Final Thoughts:
Overall, "Jupiter Ascending" is more an infuriating movie than a bad movie. The Wachowski's have proven all the way back in 1999 that they can make a great movie but with every subsequent movie sense they have tarnished their legacy more and more. The movie has some interesting visuals and decent acting but at the end of the day it is boddled down by a terrible writing, lackluster imagination, and one of the worst acting performances I have ever seen in Eddie Redmayne.
Final Grade: 4/10 (C-)
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