Wonders of Wachowskian Cinema

Earlier this month I went to the cinema and watched the Wachowskis’ Jupiter Ascending, the latest in Andy and Lana’s epic body of work that includes one of my favorite movies of all time (Cloud Atlas). I sat there for almost two hours and lost myself in a wonderful tale of how a human girl who works as a toilet cleaner discovers that she’s the reincarnation of a queen of the universe who owned Earth and how she eventually became a target of said queen’s children, who want to possess Earth and will employ any means necessary to own the girl or end her life. The girl gets help from humanoid hybrid creatures and then meets a cast of amazingly designed aliens wearing the most gloriously elaborate costumes, strutting about in equally impressive spaceships. It is magnificent. And yet, when I walked out of the theatre, all I could hear was how people were disappointed that Jupiter Ascending was nothing like Cloud Atlas. At which point my hackles were raised.

The source of my anger was not the fact that people didn’t enjoy Jupiter Ascending the way I did. Of course I don’t mind if people don’t find the film as fun as I did. Everyone has a right to his or her own taste and thoughts of a movie, and I’d be even more annoyed if people were to tell me that I was wrong to like or dislike a certain film just because they thought the opposite. What really angered me was the fact that people were stuck at Cloud Atlas… as if that was the only thing the Wachowskis ever made in cinema.

Before Cloud Atlas, the Wachowskis were best known for The Matrix trilogy, which they created, wrote, directed, developed and expanded. On a level of imagination alone, Jupiter Ascending was EXACTLY what I thought Andy and Lana would make because it had all the world-building and character-designing that The Matrix enjoyed. Of course the style is different but if you knew the Wachowskis at all, then you’d expect that they’d go so far as to create universes beyond that which we and science know so far. Jupiter Ascending, like The Matrix, is a great example of how filmmakers can be just as innovative as a science fiction writer. They created both universes in the Matrix and in Jupiter Ascending without having to resort to adapting an existing written work by another author. With the exception of a few, I don’t see many other filmmakers doing that with their work. Most original screenplays I know don’t expose the level of grandness that the Wachowskis include in The Matrix and Jupiter Ascending.

And then there’s Speed Racer. Admittedly the Wachowskis based this film on an animated series, but the screenplay was their own. It wasn’t a huge success and critics weren’t enamored by it. But to this day, it remains one of my favorite racing movies of all time, simply for the fact that it has a clever plot, with an interesting twist, and some great performances. I also love its tongue-in-cheek humor, which goes far into making me like some of the characters. I think Jupiter Ascending’s tone is closer to Speed Racer than to The Matrix. Visually speaking, Jupiter Ascending is probably the Wachowskis’ second most colorful film, right after Speed Racer. If people were more sympathetic toward Speed Racer, I’m pretty sure they wouldn’t readily dismiss Jupiter Ascending. Both movies, after all, display the same level of fun.

Which brings us to the keyword “fun”. Films that Andy and Lana wrote and/or directed are always epic adventures to follow. They’re fun and they have the ability to immerse you within the world the story takes place in. They don’t need to be clever or intelligent or ironic or whatever, they just need to make you suspend your disbelief for a while and be interested in the story. And somewhere along the way, they always get to make us feel something — be it tearful emotion right before you sacrifice yourself to robots or heart-liberating laughter that comes from seeing someone catch aliens in action, their stories have that because the Wachowskis as creators, too, believe in it. In the moment, or in the sequence, or whatever it is that they created. That’s powerful storytelling, and that’s the Wachowski way.

So let’s not get stuck in just that one movie that Andy and Lana directed/adapted and dismiss the other films they made just because it was nothing like that one you’re stuck on. If you can claim to love Cloud Atlas for how it was made as a film, then you should also be able to learn to accept that the directors aren’t no-talent hacks who can’t come up with different ways of telling a story. Hate it because of Channing Tatum’s pale face or dislike it because Balem Abrasax is a cheesy villain. But let’s not say “I don’t like Jupiter Ascending because it’s not like Cloud Atlas.”