Descending
A Film Review by Akash Singh
NOTE: SPOILERS OCCUR!!!!!!!
The Wachowskis have built a remarkable career over the genius of a single film: The Matrix. In all fairness, The Matrix is one of the most incredible films of all time and directors who make such a groundbreaking film deserve goodwill. But after that, the Wachowskis haven’t made a great film in its own regard. When announced, Jupiter Ascending looked utterly bizarre and confusing and the trailers did little to assuage those fears. But in all honesty, there was at least something to be had here it seemed in the way of an intergalactic space opera that included an awesome cast. Unfortunately Jupiter Ascending is such an incoherent mess that it simply boggles the mind that over $175 million was spent on its production. If Ridley Scott can’t use the goodwill of his earlier career to consistently make terrible films and expect them to do well, neither can the Wachowskis. But even more so than the terrible film in and of itself, it’s quite unfortunate that an original sci-fi concept is so thunderously squandered. As if Hollywood wasn’t already enamored to death with sequels and reboots, Jupiter Ascending isn’t helping.
A deafening sense of burdensome familiarity is what ultimately kills this entire endeavor by driving a fairly sharp stake right through its barely beating heart and it does so in several ways. For one thing, despite some seamless VFX work, visually the film rarely enchants and that in and of itself was shocking. The Wachowskis have built a considerable reputation over the years for at the very least successfully creating entire worlds either from their imagination or from the works they have adapted. It’s a reputation duly deserved as even the fairly meddling Cloud Atlas was able to succeed at). Jupiter Ascending, on the other hand, is remarkably lenient in taking snippets of Star Wars, Star Trek, and even the Wachowskis’ own earlier films in order to create their universe here. As a result, the entire affair feels visually redundant in every frame. Even the ship designs, which at least in some of the promos looked intriguing, are so similar to each other that when there’s a plethora of them crowding the screen, it can frankly become difficult to discern who is fighting whom at times (or you simply don’t care by that point). One would expect breathtaking visual originality when it comes to creating civilizations on planets we know so much about yet so little. But it simply doesn’t exist here.
In the midst of all of this are completely botched characterizations that, when put together, are more puzzling than trying to complete a ten-thousand piece puzzle that has a couple hundred pieces missing. For one, just on reasons of stupidity alone, there are human-animal hybrids for no apparent reason other than to have Sean Bean say “bees are genetically engineered to recognize royalty” with a straight face. Bean – and this is no joke but I earnestly hoped it was – plays someone named Stinger Apiary. The nam would be hilarious except that Apiary is part bee. How? Why? Never explained. Channing Tatum is part-dog because why not. In slightly less logically challenging characterizations, Mila Kunis plays a janitor named Jupiter who accepts that she is the reincarnated version of the universe’s queen within about thirty seconds (to be fair to Jupiter, if I was a janitor then the gig of ruling the universe can sound pretty great). The promos and everything have rightfully put her right band center, but throughout the film she is constantly being saved by Tatum on flying skates. At a certain point you just start groaning at how poorly this film is treating its own leading character, leaving her in a detestable damsel in distress situation on a regular basis. On the more universal spectrum there are there the three siblings vying for control of the universe who form the thin backbone of the film’s plot. Each one of them is unique in how they approach Jupiter’s claim as being the reincarnated Queen of the Universe and Eddie Redmayne as the most evil of the trio has by far the chewiest role and he actually manages to have fun with it. This should be the recipe for some Shakespearean flair but it never manifests itself on screen.
Amidst the $175 million extravagance, the Wachowskis somehow managed to lose the complexity their story and characters required to function, instead giving us nothing but the thinnest of dramatic heft. As it is, Jupiter Ascending pretends like it has a lot to say about the world, but the entire endeavor is enveloped in an aura of artificiality. Specifically the movie tries to analyze the draw of power and how greed in and of itself can be such a powerful tool for wealthy intergalactic Brits, but it simply comes off as an empty attempt at trying to fill an intellectual void that throttles the movie at its core. There is something terribly ironic in how the film actually approaches the philosophy it its trying to portend and instead manages to turn it on its own head. You see, the lesson Jupiter Ascending winds up teaching you is almost reprehensible in its vapid simplicity: there are only evil people in this world (or the solar system, universe, et cetera) and the heroes who can stop them. If you want to be a hero, you can never be tempted, you can never stray, and you can certainly never make a mistake. And if you do any of those things, you will always then resort right back to doing the right thing and saving the day. The world in movies like this is always starkly split between black and white and the occasional gray is simply wiped off the face of the earth before it overstays its intellectual welcome. That simplicity in real life simply doesn’t exist, however; like galactic queens who are reincarnated into janitors, for example.
Average
5/10
Title: Jupiter Ascending
MPAA Rating: PG-13
Directed by: Lana Wachowski, Andy Wachowski
Produced by: Grant Hill, Lana Wachowski, Andy Wachowski
Written by: Lana Wachowski, Andy Wachowski
Starring: Channing Tatum, Mila Kunis, Sean Bean, Eddie Redmayne, Douglas Booth
Music: Michael Giacchino
Cinematography: John Toll
Editing: Alexander Berner
Production Company: Village Roadshow Pictures, Anarchos Productions
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures, Roadshow Entertainment
Running Time: 127 minutes
Release Dates: January 27, 2015 (Sundance Film Festival), February 6, 2015 (North America), February 19, 2015 (Australia)
Image Courtesy: Crosswalk
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