Jupiter Ascending (2015)

Dir. Lana Wachowski, Andy Wachowski

“A young woman discovers her destiny as an heiress of intergalactic nobility and must fight to protect the inhabitants of Earth from an ancient and destructive industry.”

This film was not completely terrible; the Wachowskis have created yet another fantastic world with great visuals and an inspiring musical score. But, the story is so unfortunately rushed, the action so quickly cut and dialogue so sparse that the film is emotionally lifeless and it’s difficult to feel any connection to the characters and their story when given so little.

Jupiter had the chance to become a fantastic sci-fi character, but the lack of emotional attachment just stops you from routing for her, from willing her on. This also isn’t helped by the fact that, despite her being the central focus of the film, she does often feel very much like a back seat passenger. She is, for the most part, along for the ride with us as we discover what on Earth (or off Earth, as the case may be) is going on and from a narrative perspective I can understand how the Wachowskis would’ve wanted that. I do like how we are thrust into the story exactly as she is, without a clue, though I don’t think it works 100% successfully thanks to the lack of depth and poor pacing in the story. Because of how her characters journey has been laid out Jupiter is sadly damseled multiple times, which becomes increasingly annoying, but she does eventually claim some agency in that she decides her own fate instead of the fate attempted upon her by others throughout the length of the film (pause for applause!).

As for the cast Mila Kunis is a perfectly fine lead but she isn’t given much to work with and comes across as quite bland. Eddie Redmayne is impressively creepy and for once I didn’t completely hate Channing Tatum. Oh, and Sean Bean doesn’t die! (hooray!).

I desperately wanted to know more about this world and it’s inhabitants than what was offered in 2 hours. There is so much to see, so much to learn and discover in the film yet we are like a stone skipping endlessly across a pond never destined to drop below the surface. Perhaps another trilogy from the Wachowskis was in order? the pacing of The Matrix trilogy really gave you time to soak in every aspect of that world, Jupiter Ascending is lacking all of that. There was no time to breathe, no time to take in any of what we we are given.

It’s all such a shame, this film could’ve been truly excellent.