Jupiter Ascending

Directed by Lilly and Lana Wachowski (2015) *1/2

What has happened to the Wachowskis? The Matrix (1999) showed so much promise and, though it was designed to be continued, was in its way a perfect sci-fi concoction. Mixing Philip K. Dickian concepts, John Woo-like action sequences and mysterious, compelling characters, The Matrix should have been the beginning of a strong ongoing franchise like Planet of the Apes or Star Trek. Instead, four years elapsed before the second entry in the series, The Matrix Reloaded, and something happened during this inordinate amount of time: the creators seemed to have lost their ability to tell a good story. Reloaded suffered from too much expository dialog, CGI that looked primitive then (and even worse now, in retrospect), too much mushy and nonsensical Zen philosophy, characters hard to care about and a ridiculous, far-too-long rave scene that symbolized for many viewers how far the series had fallen.

The Matrix Revolutions (2003) was more of the same; its only saving grace for this viewer was a climactic action sequence which, stood on its own, seemed to me a direct tapping into the spirit of ’30s and ’40s pulp magazine science fiction material.

The Wachowskis have stumbled on since, without creating another zeitgeist-tapping phenomenon like The Matrix. Their talent, I think, needs to be tethered to a strong story written by someone else. Faithfully adapting some of the work of A. E. Van Vogt, for example, could make for strong filmmaking. On their own, their films often look great — but aren’t.

Jupiter Ascending, their latest, is a loud, busy mess. It draws from so many sources that it’s hard to describe; the space opera of Edgar Rice Burroughs, The Fifth Element, Brazil, Star Wars, The Wizard of Oz, It’s a Wonderful Life, Soylent Green and Buck Rogers are just a few of its cultural references. The film has, it should be said, a lot of passion and heart poured into its characters and world-building, but little inspiration or sense.

Mila Kunis plays Jupiter Jones, a Russian, cleaning toilets for a living in America, with her wacky family. Somehow (the film describes it in various ways, but none of them quite make sense), Jones is also a reincarnated queen who holds title to the Earth. She must be eradicated by three warring, conniving brothers and sisters of royalty, of the sort seen in Game of Thrones or Roger Zelazny’s Amber series. One of them is played with campy audaciousness by Academy Award winner Eddie Redmayne, who seems to realize Jupiter Ascending is deliciously bad.

Earth is due to be “harvested” for its human DNA, essential for the cosmic royalty to prolong their millennium-long lives. While Jones is alive, this can’t be done — a preposterous premise.

Jupiter Jones’ savior and love interest is Caine Wise, played by Channing Tatum, looking faintly ridiculous as a half canine with Spock ears, an unbecoming yellow goatee, and Tron-like glowing skates enabling him to fly through the air. He comes to her rescue in at least four major scenes, each time dodging a ferocious barrage of totally ineffectual artillery and incompetent attackers of various races.

For a movie so reliant on detailed, expensive action sequences, those sequences are noteworthy for being edited so quickly they’re nearly all incomprehensible — it’s just a blur of color and shapes. Rarely do we get the opportunity to understand the spatial context in which the action is happening. We may as well be looking over the shoulder of a kid playing a video game on a phone. Jupiter Ascending cost $175 million (consider how many destitute people could be helped with that sum). For that amount of time, talent and money to go into a film that’s so emotionally and intellectually unsatisfying is a waste.

The tone of the film is also off. It tries to be so many things that none of them work. There’s no chemistry between the leads and we don’t care about them anyway. The movie could have used more humor, but all the film has to give is lumped into one, Brazil-influenced maze-of-bureaucracy scene (with Terry Gilliam playing a cameo) which, because it’s nothing like any other scene in the film, seems out of place. So does the subplot about Jones trying to sell her eggs to buy a telescope. And the scene in which bees can detect a queen (“Bees don’t lie”). And the fact that Caine Wise changes Jones’ clothes when she’s unconscious. And the end, when the canine gets his wings.

Skip Jupiter Ascending.

—Michael R. Neno, 2015 July 23