JUPITER ASCENDING

Reviewed by Patrick Gibbs

GRADE: B+

Channing Tatum, Mila Kunis, Sean Bean, Eddie Redmayne, Douglas Booth, Tuppence Middleton, James D'Arcy,
Written and Directed by Wachowskis
Rated PG-13 (some violence, sequences of sci-fi action, some suggestive content and partial nudity)

First thing's first. If you are expecting a mind bending, cerebral experience like the The Matrix that makes you wonder about the nature of reality, you will be disappointed with Jupiter Ascending. 

This movie has no pretense about what it is: it's really just Flash Gordon by way of The Wizard of Oz with a healthy dose of Soylent Green thrown in. It's pure B movie, silly, campy space fantasy, not to be confused with science fiction.

It's also a lot of fun.

 Unknown to Earth's residents, life on Earth and countless other planets has been seeded by Alien royalty  for the purpose of harvesting the evolved living creatures once they reach a state of perfection in evoltuon, in order to produce a type of youth that allows them to live forever. When the matriarch of the House of Abrasax, the most powerful of the alien dynasties, dies her children Balem (Eddie Redmayne), Kalique (Tuppence), and Titus (Douglas Booth) are at war over the inheritance. Eventually a new heir comes to their attention: Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis), an unsuspecting, Earth-living, unlucky caretaker of other people's homes.  Jupiter encounters Caine Wise (Channing Tatum), a genetically engineered interplanetary warrior, who came to Earth to reveal that her genetic signature makes Jones royalty and heir to Earth. Meanwhile, he has to protect her from Balem, who put a bounty on her head and would rather harvest Earth than lose it to Jones.

This is all really just an excuse for action and special effects, but it's really good action and fantastic special effects. Every time I started to get annoyed with the flimsiness and hokey quality of the material, Channing Tatum would use his anti-gravity speed skates and I'd think "Ah, who cares if it makes sense? Pass the popcorn."

I used to be one of Tatum's most vocal detractors, but I have to say, he's really come into his own and makes a strong, charismatic lead in this film (not unlike Keanu Reeves did for the Wachowski's.). I wish the character had been more fully developed, but that can't be blamed on Tatum in the least. The chemistry between him, Mila Kunis and Sean Bean is very strong and they do a great job of driving this movie. The villains are more of a mixed bag: Middleton offers little more than added sex appeal, and Booth (Shem in Darren Aronofsky's Noah) is given a flimsy character. But Eddie Redmayne, fresh off of his Oscar nomination for The Theory of Everything, is all over the place, speaking in a voice that is so soft and raspy that one can't help but think of the "low talker' on Seinfeld, except for when he gets angry, and then he turns into '90's Gary Oldman. I suppose the main goal is to make him seem creepy, and I can't deny that he is, but it's more than a bit overdone.

There is also a bit of a feeling that the film has been trimmed down to be as streamlined as possible, with all of the plot holes and confusion that usually comes with such a choice.

Still, the fact remains that Jupiter Ascending knows exactly what it wants to be a fun, campy space opera that evokes both the old serials of the '30's and the silly space flicks of the '60's and '70's-  and it succeeds spectacularly.