Jupiter Ascending Movie Review

Jupiter Ascending (2015)

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Written by: Lilly Wachowski, Lana Wachowski (as The Wachowskis)
Directed by: Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski (as The Wachowskis)
Starring: Channing Tatum, Milas Kunis, Eddie Redmayne, Sean Bean, Douglas Booth, Tuppence Middleton, Doona Bae
Rated: PG-13
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Plot
Jupiter Jones wakes every morning wishing her life were different. When bounty hunters attempt to kidnap her, it's revealed she is intergalactic royalty and heiress of the planet Earth.

Verdict
The main problem with the movie is that too many ideas are crammed into one movie without a sufficient amount of detail or exploration. If you are hoping for the Wachowskis to make another The Matrix like Mila Kunia and Channing Tatum may have, your hope is misplaced.
For a movie that on paper has some interesting parts, maybe too many, it's surprising that it feels so off. It's a wide miss. This movie doesn't have any real stakes. What does it really mean that Jupiter is queen of the galaxy? We never found out. CGI is used to cover up a lack of story. New ideas and concepts are introduced to avoid explaining anything already introduced. Stuff happens in the movie, but who cares.
Skip it.

Review
I've seen this before and didn't like it, but I'm watching it again because... I'm reviewing it again.

The core story is an unlikely maid is actually queen of the galaxy. It's not a new concept, but logic is often ignored to move the story along.

There's a lot in this movie and if you blink you'll miss something. With so much in the movie nothing is really explored. Channing Tatum plays a character claiming to be more dog than man even though he looks 98% man. For some reason he had wings.

Mila Kunis plays Jupiter Jones.

This has aliens, futuristic bounty hunters with feathers for hair, and three Abraxas siblings who maybe rule the universe. I wondered if there were other rich rulers like them or if they are the only regen juice swigging ones out there. That matter is inconclusive. They have a conflict with Jupiter Jones because she is entitled to their inheritance since her DNA is the exact same as the siblings' mother. If they had just ignored her completely there would be no plot to this movie, but I suppose the siblings each wanted to use her for the inheritance and title.

Since the mom left a spot for her DNA reoccurrence in her will you'd think there would be a way to work that out and that this has happened before. This is a galaxy where people live a ridiculously long time. Why leave a clause in your will if this hasn't happened before? Surely it has, but apparently not according to this movie. No one knows anything. I never figured out how the Abraxas kids even found her.

I actually liked Sean Bean's character. That's not saying much though.

I get this is setting up a mystery and trying to make me clamor for answers, but I don't care. Maybe it's trying to put us in her shoes with an overload of crazy, but there are just too many fantasy elements too soon. Half these aliens are humans with weird ears. There's a lack of explanation for nearly everything in the movie. I have no problem with a movie that delves into fantasy, but my reoccurring question was, "Why?" What is the point of including this detail?

Channing Tatum plays Dog Man.

Jupiter falls in love with dog man in a romance that is built up for exactly two seconds. Jupiter begins stating how she falls for the wrong men and I was wondering who she could be talking about.

Eddie Redmayne plays an Abraxas sibling and his performance is notable. He's overacting like his life depends on it. It seems inspired by Gary Oldman's performance in The Professional, though only seeing the last twenty minutes of the movie. Redmayne whispers most of his lines then screams other lines for effect.

Part of my disbelief comes from the air fight between aliens and dog man. Chicago is destroyed. Wouldn't someone notice? The movie hand waves that away a la Men in Black that they erase people's memories, but the buildings were destroyed overnight. There's a lack of attention to detail. The fight itself repeats images of Tatum grimacing with his ship flying between buildings.

Bees reveal that Jupiter Jones is royalty.

The most startling revelation may be that, "Bees are genetically designed to recognize royalty?" What kind of movie is this? What's up with the bee fascination? Bees break this movie wide open. Bees are the answer. I'll give the movie credit that a DNA sequence replaces royal bloodlines, but the movie never tries to build on that.

This movie goes for no idea is a bad idea, including everything. Lizard people, mice men, everyone in the galaxy is human, Earth is just a resource being farmed... The movie explains crop circles, but half way in I don't know the stakes. What does Jupiter's heritage really mean? The ending of this only makes that more confusing.

I wonder if people were concerned about this movie and the Wachowskis kept reassuring them saying, "I get it but remember we made The Matrix trilogy. Even though the third one sucked, we figured out the problem there."

Eddie Redmayne is really doing an acting thing.

I think Redmayne kept telling people he played Stephen Hawking and not to bother him with comments on his performance.

This movie is too much money and too much leeway. I'd bet even money there were a lot of comments and the Matrix defense was invoked multiple times. Maybe they were concerned this was their last movie and they should throw every sci fi idea they've ever had into it.