Holy crap, we enjoyed Jupiter Ascending
Mila Kunis’s Jupiter in a gown designed by Michael Cinco
The reviews are so terrible, the box-office so bad (The Spongebob movie kicked its ass) that we had to see for ourselves if the Wachowskis’s Jupiter Ascending deserved such general excoriation, and we found ourselves enjoying the movie.
True, we saw it in 4DX and the constant rumbling and shaking of our seats probably made it more fun than the regular cinema experience (Will 50 Shades of Grey be available in 4DX?), and our sister’s screen saver is the Magic Mike XXL trailer so she can’t really comment on Jupiter’s aesthetic qualities. However, we were greatly entertained by the space adventures of cleaning lady Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) who, unbeknownst to herself, is the reincarnation of the queen of the universe.
With the help of disgraced space-cops Caine (Channing Tatum with prosthetic ears) and Stinger (Sean Bean, whose character we expected to get killed any instant because he is played by Sean Bean), she must face the galactic ruling family Abrasax, which has nasty plans for earth. The dynasty is represented by evil capitalists Balem (Eddie Redmayne) and Titus (Douglas Booth) who regard earthlings as a resource to be harvested and sold (Like in the Wachowskis’ The Matrix, where humans are batteries). We know they are evil because they are very pretty, fine-boned Brits, and because Eddie can only speak in a whisper-shout.
The sets are gorgeous and the action sequences are spectacular; it’s a thrilling ride, which in 4DX is literally that. We were delighted to see James D’Arcy and other cast members of the badly-treated Cloud Atlas (We assume that Hugo Weaving played all the spectators), and Terry Gilliam as a bureaucrat in a nod to Brazil.
Douglas Booth engages Mila Kunis in a beauty contest.
Why all the hate for a big, silly spectacle which does not pretend to know the meaning of life? Because the Wachowskis’s movies are expected to answer all the cosmic questions (or at least ask you to choose between a blue pill and a red pill), and because the Matrix movies were over-praised and too successful. Also it doesn’t have that “Yeah! Woo! Who’s the queen of the universe, bitch?” ending that audiences demand.
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February 9th, 2015 at 18:01
I still hadn’t seen this one. Knowing how these siblings are big comic book and anime fans, they drew quite a bit from those tropes as well. I’m awfully curious about how they’d treat these callbacks in their style through this film (putting aside what they’ve done with their previous films, of course).