Jupiter Ascending (2015)

Jupiter Ascending (PG-13)

"Stupider is as Jupiter does"

The poor daughter of an immigrant house cleaner is sucked into a sci-fi vortex of space ships and soap operas in the Wachowski sibling's newest effort, Jupiter Ascending.

Mila Kunis is Jupiter, the female protagonist so gullible and worthless even her villain points out the overwhelming evidence of her own idiotic naivete to her face.  Apparently she is the accidental gene double of the former Queen of the galaxy (humans have spread farther and ascended higher than us lowly Earthlings know), and the reigning Royalty is out to silence Jupiter before she lays claim to her Throne by birth right (and their Soylent Green-ish business model).  A confusing mish-mash of Science Fiction tropes is awaiting her ladyship, the damsel in distress.  Foremost is her Prince in shining armor, or in this case Channing Tatum with elf ears and glowing inline gravity space skates.  The ridiculousness of that sentence was apparently lost on no-one but the filmmakers.  The Wachowski siblings may be attempting to flaunt their new found feminine sides but Jupiter Ascending is nothing but a badly disguised romance novel with lasers and space princesses, the kind of fanfic usually reserved for the laziest alleys of the internet.

The CG is pretty but ineffective, the actors they squeezed into it just wave their arms around and grit their teeth and hope they look like they are piloting a star fighter.  The production design is glossy but derivative and sadly you can't help but laugh every time Tatum's rocket shoes try to look cool, and meanwhile the jumpy exposition attempts to tie the story to real life UFOs on Earth and is slipshod and wildly uneven, Men in Black did a better job at covering plot holes through memory loss than does JA, and it was an action comedy!.  Well thought out isn't Jupiter's strong suit, and neither is it's plot or heroine.  Apparently audiences were supposed to feel for a poor, Russian migrant girl who inherits the planet and then gets to dress pretty for 2 hours while making the stupidest of decisions like a cinematic 1950s airhead.  Eddie Redmayne (as one of the evil Abraxas siblings out to stop Jupiter) has now gone the gamut of Oscar winner one year to squealing over-acting scenery chewer the next, and being in this bomb may cut down on his appeal.  Meanwhile Mila shows even less acting chops than normal, Channing is a mopey and uncharismatic bore who just goes PEW PEW while glowering.  Even a Sean Bean cameo adds nothing to the proceedings, nothing! and there needs to be a whole lot more.

In short, Jupiter Ascending is a trip down, way down, descending to the level of a Harry Potter/Hungergames/Young Adult Book cash grab wanna be with no purpose or source material to support its many weaknesses and eccentricities.  The movie Cloud Atlas could have been without an excellent writer in other words.

2 Must Love Dogs out of 10 (AWFUL)