Movie Review - Jupiter Ascending

Jupiter Ascending (2015)

Starring Channing Tatum, Mila Kunis, Sean Bean, and Eddie Redmayne

Directed by The Wachowskis

Essentially incomprehensible, Jupiter Ascending is an utter mess brought to us from the Wachowski siblings.  Lest you forget, I'm actually one of the few people who enjoyed Cloud Atlas, placing that unjustly reviled film in my Top Twenty of 2012, so I'm not inherently opposed to their crazy notions (although I was certainly not a fan of The Matrix).  Their latest incarnation is just a disaster.

Mila Kunis is Jupiter Jones, a Russian immigrant who came to the US as a baby and is now working with her mother as a maid for rich folks in Chicago.  About an hour into the film, we discover that Jupiter is the reincarnated mother of three alien siblings from some far away planet and one or more of them may want to kill her.  Prior to this discovery, Jupiter is seen attempting to be captured by a variety of different people despite the fact that we in the audience are clueless for sixty minutes as to why she's being hunted.  I literally found myself looking up things on Google like "Why is Jupiter Jones being chased" because the film sets up the story as if we should know what's going on and I found myself utterly clueless thanks to the piss-poor storytelling on display.

Ultimately, it's the script that's the biggest problem here with the Wachowski's failing to make sense most of the time.  Eddie Redmayne as one of those aforementioned bad siblings mumbles his lines, Channing Tatum rides around on gravity-defying boots acting tough (yet sensitive), and Mila Kunis unsuccessfully attempts to act surprised at everything going on around her.  The final hour of the film is one big action sequence that's just a bunch of noise and clanging and banging.  Ugh.  This one really is a worthless waste of your time.

The RyMickey Rating:  D-