Jupiter Can Only Ascend So High

As great as Eddie Redmayne was as Stephen Hawking in “The Theory of Everything,” he is absolutely as grating and annoying in “Jupiter Ascending,” the new film directed by Andy and Lana Wachowski. The film is not grating and annoying, thankfully. There are enough good moments and elements in the film to make it worth watching, despite the influx of dull action scenes that every director and writer of sci-fi films seems to think is necessary. Perhaps it is the studios that demand such scenes of things blowing up, running into buildings, flying around, etc. All such scenes in “Jupiter Ascending” could have been shortened and the film cut by twenty minutes and this would have been a much tighter, more interesting movie. The action scenes took me out of the film and left me cold, as is often the case in such films.

Mila Kunis is good as Jupiter Jones, the young woman from Earth who (I’m going to screw this up, so I’m just telling you right now) is the “mother” of a far-away planet, a planet whose inhabitants rely on a substance into which they skinny dip to remain young. That is simplifying the plot, but while watching the film I was more interested in particular moments than with the story as a whole. Again, if the film had been about twenty minutes shorter, I may have been more into it. Jupiter is whisked away to…..yeah, Jupiter…..with Caine Wise (Channing Tatum), a genetically engineered soldier who she, of course, falls in love with. This set of circumstances makes the film feel like book one of yet another young adult book series, however, “Jupiter Ascending” is an original screenplay and not based on a book or a book series. The film is just “adult” enough to not completely feel like a story written for 14-year old girls, however, Jupiter and Caine fall in love waaaay to quickly and they have no chemistry whatsoever to make such a thing believable. Tatum is fine as Caine Wise, but not nearly as effective as he was in “Foxcatcher.” It was pleasant to see Sean Bean (Ned Stark from “Game of Thrones”) as Stinger Apini. He has an origin having to do with bees. He lives in a house with a bunch of bee hives inside and outside of his dwelling. Eddie Redmayne plays Balem Abrasax, a ruthless tyrant who lives on Jupiter and is trying to infiltrate Jupiter and Caine’s plan. Balem is a master infiltrator. He also has the most annoying speech pattern of any character in recent film history. This is not necessarily Redmayne’s fault but, more likely, is a function of the script. Redmayne plays Balem like a 4th string Benedict Cumberbatch or, if you like, a very, very, very, very tired and ill Benedict Cumberbatch. Then, occasionally, he would yell something out when he was mad. For example, some his dialogue would go as follows: “You must find this young woman……..she is what we need…….(in a low, sickly sounding voice). SO GO GET HER!!!!!!!!!!!!!” There is nothing good about Redmayne’s performance or the direction of his performance. I had an issue with the bath of youth. One female character who is said to be in her 40’s wants to enter the bath of youth so she will regain her youth. Said character looks much more appealing as a 40-ish woman than after she exits the bath of youth. She already looked hot! She didn’t need a bath. I enjoyed the fact that “Jupiter Ascending” had some very interesting set pieces and some definitively Wachowski moments, reminiscent of their outstanding 2013 film, “Cloud Atlas.” That film, though, even at just a bit under 3 hours, was much tighter and flowed much better than the film discussed here. About halfway through, “Jupiter Ascending” turns into Terry Gilliam’s “Brazil” for about five minutes as Jupiter has to become a registered citizen and has to go to a variety of government offices. This section of the film feels very much like “Brazil,” which was fine with me because I like that film and the characters in this section are the most interesting ones we see, albeit for not very long. “Jupiter Ascending” is an ok movie, but not as great as it could have been if not infiltrated by too many boring action scenes and a dull romance shoehorned into the story. Unfortunately, it does not ascend very high.

A Few Things About Things

When I decided to watch the 1989 shot-on-video horror movie, "Things, I had a good idea of what I was getting into. After the 84 minutes I spent watching it, I feel confident in saying that, if you are of the right mindset, you will have a good idea with this movie. Barry J. Gillis stars, kind of, as Don Drake, a guy who ends up in a friend's house with two of his buddies, somewhere in Canada, or is it supposed to be New Jersey? It doesn't matter.

In this house are creatures, things, as it were, that crawl around and seem to inhabit other people's bodies. This makes the guys go insane and makes one guy have to go shirtless after having blood sprayed on him. It's difficult to sit here and describe the plot because that is not what "Things," or any other movie like it is about. It is about enjoying the experience of watching a really crappy movie just for the hell of it and enjoying the way in which it is poorly made, poorly looped, poorly edited, to such an extreme that you will experience very few dull moments. I know not everybody is that enamored with such cinematic failure, but I am. As such, I enjoyed "Things" as a sincerely made effort made by a group of guys in Canada who somehow convinced porn actress, Amber Lynn, to appear in a few scenes as a news anchor whose teleprompter is off to the side somewhere.

Mayhem ensues soon enough, bad looping happens, the camera points above the actor's heads a few times, ugly crawling bug-like things show up, Amber Lynn's big 80's hair is on display, crazy music happens, all in just 84 minutes. I'll take it. "Things" appears to be shot on film then transferred to video for the then booming home video market. If only the "Things" movie tie-in novel would end up on Ebay.

The Imitation Game

There were a handful of films I saw in 2014, the stories of which I did not know completely before having seen the film. Two such films were Tim Burton's "Big Eyes" and the film about Stephen Hawking, "The Theory of Everything." Another film, the story of which I was almost completely unfamiliar, was "The Imitation Game," the story of mathematician, Alan Turing, the creator of essentially the first computer. Said computer was used to detect Nazi war ships during World War II. Benedict Cumberbatch ("Sherlock," "Star Trek Into Darkness," "August: Osage County") delivers a fantastic performance as Turing. Keira Knightley provides a standout performance as Joan Clarke, one of Turing's colleagues, charged with creating anything that can provide the Allies an advantage during the war. The mutual admiration between Turing and Clarke is evident, admiration as colleagues. Knightly plays Clarke as being aware of Turing sexuality, perhaps not at first, but eventually she seems to be aware that Turing is gay.

I appreciated the fact that Turing's sexuality was not used against him as far as the script goes. I never found myself thinking much about it except for the few scenes throughout the film which take place in the 1950's and during a fantastic, emotional powerhouse of an ending to the film. Turing's accomplishments, in the film, are not overshadowed by his sexuality, nor should they be. I found myself learning a lot about Turing's accomplishments and the implications of his accomplishments to the British war effort. I suppose I should be more aware of Turing's work, however, since I was not, I feel my ignorance was to my advantage as events unfolded in the film. This is one of the very few times in my life my ignorance has worked to my advantage. The conclusion of the film angered me immensely, but in a good way, the way a well-written, well-paced film will make me react if such a reaction is dictated by the script or the story. The always welcome, Charles Dance, who you may recognize as Tywin Lannister from "Game of Thrones" and from the amazingly dull 2013 "Patrick," remake (I'll excuse that one--by the way, the original "Patrick" from 1978, directed by Richard Franklin is a great horror film) is very good as Commander Denniston, the man in charge of Turing and his cohorts charged with creating sometime to infiltrate the Nazis.

"The Imitation Game" is an exceptionaly well-crafted film without a bit of false emotion or forced sentimentality. All the emotions I felt throughout the course of the film were a result of the performances, directed by Norweigan filmmaker, Morten Tyldum and the taut script by Graham Moore, his first feature-length screenplay credit. Well done, sir! The film is well deserving of its Best Picture nomination during the 2014 Oscars. It, and the other seven nominees, will likely be defeated by "Boyhood," however, when it is released on Netflix, Redbox, and streaming, I highly recommended you take a look at "The Imitation Game."