Better late than never, I always
say. Having told myself that I should
give ‘Jupiter Ascending’ a pass due to all the negative reviews as well as my
disappointment in the Wachowskis’ post-Matrix credits, I went against my better
judgment and decided to give it a look.
“It can’t be that bad,” I thought.
At the very least, the visual FX should be worthwhile.
My verdict on JA is similar to
most critics’. The Wachowskis’ latest
offering is a grand space opera that’s visually stylish even as it suffers from
weak storytelling and a hackneyed plot.
The movie’s basic premise is interesting enough; earth is one of many
planets hosting intelligent life unwittingly exploited by effete alien demigods
who harvest them when “ripe,” meaning the population reaches a tipping point
when the planets’ natural resources and environment can no longer sustain
them. The people are harvested not for
“soylent green” but liquefied for the elixir of life (the ‘fountain of youth’)
in order to keep these royal demigods immortal and forever young. When the humble and unassuming earth girl
Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) takes possession of earth (and by extension the
right to determine its fate), the quibbling demigods plot and scheme against
her and each other like spoiled Roman brats of noble families to take back their
“birthright.” The length to which the
three siblings would go for their ultimate prize knows no
bounds.
So how can poor Jupiter survive
her fate as a mere pawn in this cruel Machiavellian power play of the gods? A guyliner-wearing Channing Tatum comes to
the rescue, of course. As Caine Wise, a
genetically-engineered hybrid human/wolf supersoldier/bounty hunter with his
own force-field shield and cool rocket boots, Tatum cuts a figure that’s macho
yet oddly effeminate. And along with Sean
Bean as grizzled veteran Stinger Apini, Jupiter can rest assured that whenever
she falls (and she does that quite a bit in this movie), someone will be there
to catch her like Christopher Reeve caught Margot Kidder in ‘Superman.’ While JA isn’t a great sci-fi epic that we’ll
remember fondly in time, it isn’t exactly the disaster many are making it out
to be either.
Grade: C+
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