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.