 ***PLEASE NOTE: A Blu-ray 3D disc is only compatible with 3D Blu-ray players.*** Tagline: Expand your universe. Jupiter Jones was born under a night sky, with signs predicting that she was destined for great things. Now grown, Jupiter dreams of the stars but wakes up to the cold reality of a job cleaning toilets and an endless run of bad breaks. Only when Caine, a genetically engineered ex-military hunter, arrives on Earth to track her down does Jupiter begin to glimpse the fate that has been waiting for her all along - her genetic signature marks her as next in line for an extraordinary inheritance that could alter the balance of the cosmos. Storyline: Jupiter Jones was born under a night sky, with signs predicting that she was destined for great things. Now grown, Jupiter dreams of the stars but wakes up to the cold reality of a job cleaning other people's houses and an endless run of bad breaks. Only when Caine Wise, a genetically engineered ex-military hunter, arrives on Earth to track her down does Jupiter begin to glimpse the fate that has been waiting for her all along - her genetic signature marks her as next in line for an extraordinary inheritance that could alter the balance of the cosmos. Written by Production Reviewer's Note: Reviewed by Kenneth Brown, May 22, 2015 -- For those who bemoaned the plodding politics of the Star Wars prequels, welcome to a whole new level of noisy, colorful, flashbang zzzzz. For all its CG pomp and genetically spliced circumstance, contract negotiations, inheritance disputes and other tiresome matters of galactic law slow Jupiter Ascending to a crawl. And if Abrasax family melodrama and stock shares don't put you to sleep, the terribly convoluted story, sillier sci-fi flourishes, flat, bemused or indulgent performances (it's always one of the three), frantically shifting tone, and cringe-inducing comedy will make you wish you were. Even a brief foray into Terry Gilliam-inspired bureaucratic insanity (with a fantastic cameo by Gilliam himself) can't save the film from self-infatuation. Had the whole movie embraced such hallucinatory flights of fancy, such frenzied satire and bizarre, carnival-of-the-absurd visuals, Jupiter Ascending might have gotten off the ground. Instead, it's chained to the Wachowskis' delusion that this is mind blowingly original sci-fi rather than a Frankensteinian patchwork of ideas from greater, grander space operas and sci-fi actioners. Ordinary, not-so-plain jane Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) hates her life. Hates it. She tells us as much at least three times during a montage of house cleaning, toilet scrubbing and day dreaming. Jupiter works with her mother, Aleksa (Maria Doyle Kennedy), throughout the city, trying to scrape together enough money to buy a brass telescope similar to one her father, Maximillian Jones (James D'Arcy), treasured before he died. When traditional routes to riches fail, her cousin, Vladie (Kick Gurry), convinces her to become an egg donor at a fertility clinic. Her average, unenviable life is soon upended, though, when a group of vicious little aliens called Keepers attempt to murder her during the egg harvesting procedure. Saved from certain death by a rogue, genetically engineered human/wolf-alien hybrid named Caine Wise (Channing Tatum), Jupiter learns she isn't so ordinary after all. Turns out she's intergalactic royalty; the genetic reincarnation ("recurrence") of the matriarch of House Abrasax, who lived to be more than 90,000 years old before being murdered and, apparently, reborn on Earth. Fearing further attacks, Caine whisks her away to the home of an exile human/honeybee hybrid named Stinger Apini (Sean Bean), who was once his commanding officer. Stripped of their wings and banished from the Order after Caine killed an Entitled, Stinger is reluctant to help, but quickly changes his mind upon realizing Jupiter is super, super, super important. (Verification comes by way of a swarm of bees, since bees, we learn, were genetically engineered millions of years ago to recognize and, if necessary, protect royalty. Seriously.) Of course, Caine and Jupiter can't stay for long; a decision made more easily once hover-biking bounty hunter Razo (Bae Doona), additional hunters, and a second group of Keepers descend on Stinger's farm. Razo takes Jupiter, but not before Caine manages to sneak aboard her ship. Next stop, the palace of Kalique Abrasax (Tuppence Middleton), the first of three heirs to Jupiter's empire, the other two being manipulative playboy Titus (Douglas Booth) and eeeeeevil emperor Balem (Eddie Redmayne, in one of the most unintentionally hilarious performances of the year). All three siblings want to convince Jupiter to sign over her rights to Earth, one of the most valuable, resource-rich planets in the universe; not rich in oil, but in life, a commodity royals harvest to produce immortality serum. Caine rescues Jupiter -- no spoiler alert required -- but another Abrasax snatches her up. Then another. Wash, rinse, repeat. It's here, hopping from planet to planet, dodging this faction and that, allying with this army while fleeing from the next, that Jupiter Ascending spirals out of control. There's so much story, history and politics packed into a small space that the entire movie begins to bleed into a CG-laden, explosion riddled blur. The tech, weaponry, vehicles and whirring gizmos are a visually stunning sight to behold, and there's no denying the Wachowskis know how to build wondrous, wildly spectacular alien worlds. But there's an enormous difference between building worlds and world-building; the latter being a precarious balancing act that blends disparate ideas and concepts into a cohesive, believable screen reality. There are times Jupiter Ascending feels like a movie comprised entirely of elements vomited up during a free-for-all brainstorming session. Hover skates! Matter destablizers! Inviso-jets! Little green men! Sound-wave blasters! Space gargoyles! Men in Black memory wipers! City re-builders! Offensive stereotypical Eastern European immigrants! Space gargoyles! Did we mention space gargoyles? Rejuvenation baths! Maxi-pad jokes! Armless robots! Semi-incestial marriage ceremonies! Galactic police! Cyborg bounty hunters! Thinly veiled bestiality! An entire planet dedicated to Terry Gilliam, you guys! Planet Gilliam! With Terry Gilliam!!! Gas mining colonies on Jupiter! Human/elephant hybrid pilots! Laser guns! Laser shields! Laser floors! Beeeeees!!! It's all well and fun, until it stops making sense or you stop caring altogether, whichever comes first. The Wachowskis excel in staging thrilling action sequences, and a touch of that original Matrix magic fuels the movie's kinetic id. But eventually pacing and plotting are thrown out the window, with a slow, near-stagnant second act slog that abruptly dovetails into a seizure-primed third act high on style and devoid of substance. It doesn't help that Kunis is wooden and unconvincing, or that her chemistry with Tatum is non-existent, or that Redmayne is laughably bad (rasping and barking over the top of over-the-top), or that the script falters so often and so dramatically that it's difficult to tell who's to blame, the actors or the filmmakers. Perhaps at three hours rather than a too-brisk two hours, perhaps with better editing, perhaps with a stronger cast, perhaps with a screenplay that didn't hinge on page after page of exposition, perhaps with more engaging heroes, perhaps with less cartoonish villains, perhaps with a small number of powerful themes rather than a broad, exhausting assortment... perhaps, perhaps, perhaps. There's a solid sci-fi spectacle buried somewhere in Jupiter Ascending. Unfortunately, it's not about unearthing a hidden gem, it's about figuring out which pieces of the Wachowskis' galaxy-spanning misfire should have been kept and which should have been abandoned. The final film dazzles but ultimately fizzles, marvelous in concept but disastrous in execution. I so wanted to like Jupiter Ascending. To be able to shake my head at the naysayers, proclaiming it a misunderstood classic. I want to enjoy the Wachowskis' films again. I do. But they're making it so very, very hard, on themselves and their fans. Big ideas and high concepts are great, if you're able to execute those ideas and concepts reliably, which the Wachowskis don't quite seem to have a handle on. Flash and spectacle are being confused for gripping stories and innovative action, and the gray areas in between are being squandered. Maybe next time, says the guy who uttered "maybe next time" after watching Cloud Atlas. I've been waiting for the Wachowskis to fulfill their potential since the first Matrix blew my little then-high school mind and since its sequels left me cold. Maybe next time. Thankfully, Warner's Blu-ray release is an excellent one. Though a bit light on extensive and insightful extras, Jupiter Ascending's video presentation is striking and its Dolby Atmos (core Dolby TrueHD 7.1) audio is an absolute blast. If you're a fan of the film, or have any fondness for it whatsoever, its Blu-ray release will leave you cheering. [CSW] -2.4- I rented the 2D version to see if I wanted to get the 3D version and the answer is if the price comes down low enough which it did, the 3D eye candy and D-Box motion was enough to make me add this to my collection. In short I didn't care much for the film but did enjoy the spectacle of it. So essentially I agree with these reviewers: Beautiful movie, but they focused on the surface look and not the substance. Oh if only Whedon or Abrams had been involved it would have been good, probably even great, but like Transformers and Superman they focused on long fight / flight scenes and avoided coherent plot lines. Amazing acting by Eddie Redmayne, and I feel that Mila and Channing did the best they could with what they were given. I wanted to blame this on bad writing and directing, however I really liked the writing and directing of Matrix and Cloud Atlas. Maybe they sacrificed making a great movie to get a generically accepted movie?? The special effects are clearly there; I always felt that I was looking at a visual effect on the screen, but if I had cared about the characters, I know that I would have noticed it less. Really though, the acting is all over the place, and you get the full range of the spectrum. I recommend it as a background movie at home, or necking in the theater, don't try to focus on it as all the glaring holes in the plot line will annoy you.[V4.5-A5.0] MPEG-4 AVC - D-Box 10/10. Cast Notes: Mila Kunis (Jupiter Jones), Channing Tatum (Caine Wise), Sean Bean (Stinger Apini), Eddie Redmayne (Balem Abrasax), Douglas Booth (Titus Abrasax), Tuppence Middleton (Kalique Abrasax), Nikki Amuka-Bird (Diomika Tsing), Christina Cole (Gemma Chatterjee), Nicholas A. Newman (Nesh), Ramon Tikaram (Phylo Percadium), Ariyon Bakare (Greeghan), Maria Doyle Kennedy (Aleksa), Frog Stone (Aunt Nino), David Ajala (Ibis), Doona Bae (Razo). IMDb Rating (08/07/15): 5.4/10 from 6,284 users
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