by Joseph Rossi
The first major studio release of 2015 is not the disaster everyone says it is. That doesn’t make it good. But for anyone craving big screen sci-fi, you could do much worse.
The Wachowski siblings are now considered a movie industry punching bag. After the one two punch of the indie hit Bound and the 1999 blockbuster The Matrix, they sort of fell out of favor with their adoring public. The Matrix sequels were overstuffed, overblown and extremely overhyped. Speed Racer was easy on the eyes but a massive box office failure. The same can be said with their ambitious Cloud Atlas. I actually liked it quite a bit but I was in minority on that one.
Now comes Jupiter Ascending, another huge space opera that stars Mila Kunis as Jupiter, an earth born janitor who just happens to be intergalactic royalty and the target of a trio of alien brothers (led by Eddie Redmayne) who want to take over the earth. Protecting Jupiter are two interplanetary military soldiers, Stinger (Sean Bean) and the half wolf, half human Caine (Channing Tatum) who is obviously, the love interest.
Odd but hey, this is science fiction and for the most part, it is done very well. The visuals speak for themselves — they are perfect. Whatever talent lies within this jumble belongs to the creative team. The story is, sorry to say, plain and redundant. We have seen this before. Evil aliens, world domination, spaceships flying into war firing lasers…I am spent. Enough. I’ve been to this world too many times. This isn’t original and that, for me, hurts the film. The main offense for a movie like this is for someone to say it is boring. We should be on the edge of our seats for something like this. The Matrix took audiences breath away with the power of awe in 1999. This film owes us that wonderment. Sadly we never get it.
