Jupiter Ascending [Movie Review]

There is a phrase I read from some entertainment review a while back. It has stuck with me all this time... but it seems perfectly accurate for this film. This film was a 'blunderbuss phenomenological attack.' (Niel Gabler, LA Times)

So decadent that she needs helpers to get into and out of the bath.

This is a movie packed with overly long, and overly silly combat segments written specifically for marketing to 3D theater screens.

2.5 out of 5 stars

I did not see the movie in 3D but one can easily tell. There are just some ways of shooting, and some scenes that are just designed for 3D... and they add nothing to movies.

At least the ships were cool.

For one thing my local theaters had twice the number of 3D showings as regular showings. I'm sorry... there is no movie that is worth double price to see in 3D. It was a gimmick in the 1950s, it was gimmick again in the 80s, and it is still a gimmick now. The movies are no better, they just cost you loads more and waste a lot of plastic.

Stop. Making. 3D specific movies.

Oh, and the Dragon people.

If I ever see another movie in 3D it will be the Avatar sequel. Everything else has, more or less, sucked. 

I would normally discuss the plot a little... but there's an easy way to figure out the plot.

She's not an alien, she's just from Comiket.

Dump all of your popular science fiction movies and science fiction anime into a big pile on the floor. See that pile? That is the plot. It 'borrows' from about every science fiction theme, story, and motif of the last 70 years. There is a little Soylent Green, a touch of Underworld, some Air Gear, Star Wars... the list goes on.

Aside from Sean bean, Eddy Redmayne does by far the best
acting job in the whole movie, and his role mainly consisted
of mumbling followed by yelling.

There is a chosen one (who cleans toilets and is the genetic recurrence of the late Queen), a protector who is a scoundrel (and lycanthrope-ish, with Vulcan ears), a Mentor who is Sean Bean, a royal house that is filled with villains, cybernetic police, and a very Kafka-esq bureaucracy. Ok, the last bit was fun  and reminded me of the Young Indiana Jones episodes with Kafka.  

There are references to alien abductions, vampires, dragons, angels, you name it... it was probably referenced. This movie had no focus.

But it was beautiful.

The costuming was, for the most part, excellent. The star ships were cool. The worlds beautiful. The action, while often too long, was packed. 

And while it was beautiful and stupid all at the same time.. it also commited some science fiction sins. This movie sucked with scale. The giant Red Spot of Jupiter is larger than Earth... but in the movie it is little bigger than a town in size. It should dwarf starships, it does not. There is a line that goes something like "several tons of hurricane" in reference to the Red Spot... sure, if by several you meant several million tons. I'm not even going to deal with them and time. Sometimes they seemed to get it right, and at others... they just seemed to piss it away.

Sean Bean does not (spoiler alert) die.
Something is wrong with the universe.

The movie also seemed to lack a real message. Not that I expect many movies nowadays to have one... but it even lacks the Hero's Journey of the Matrix. This movie is really a lot of fluff with no filling. It can't decide if it is against capitalism or for it, if it is against wasteful consumption or for it, if it is about being selfish or having a wide ethical circle. This movie is scatter shot.


But it is beautiful. 

I do have to ask though... have the Wachowski's produced anything that was good since the very first Matrix movie? I'm struggling... because I think the answer is no.

<-- This is Earth. This ^ is the Red Spot.
This is to scale. The Red Spot is HUGE.

Update: I've actually reduced this movie down by half a star. The longer I've thought about it... the stupider the movie gets. This was just a really stupid movie. Really really stupid.