Jupiter Ascending

Why do people keep giving The Wachowskis money to make movies?!?!?!?

Mila Kunis stars as Jupiter – an undocumented immigrant in Chicago who makes a living cleaning houses with her wacky Russian family, but always felt she was destined for so much more. It turns out she was right!

An alien part-human/part-wolf soldier, Caine (Channing “How Much Eye Liner Can I Wear” Tatum), has been sent to bring her to an outer space world at the behest of Titus Abrasax (Douglas Booth) – one of three conniving siblings who rule the universe and should star in their own reality program.

Titus needs Jupiter because she has the same genetic make up of his recently deceased mother, which gives her great power and riches beyond her wildest dreams. Jupiter is The Chosen One or Mom’s reincarnation or something.

Then, Eddie Redmayne shows up as another sibling who appears to be suffering from laryngitis, until those big dramatic moments where he screams at the top of his lungs for effect (I imagine he will be dealing with plenty of awkward questions from Oscar voters as he continues to woo them).

What does Titus want to do with Jupiter?

Can she navigate the cesspool of intrigue and dastardly double crossing?

How long will it take for Channing Tatum to remove his shirt?

Don’t worry, Tatum fans. You don’t have to wait that long.

Much like their last effort, Cloud Atlas, writers/directors The Wachowskis have given us a movie with some cool special effects, but completely bereft of emotion, strong storytelling or any compelling reason to stay awake (after Channing Tatum puts his shirt back on).

All of the exposition comes off as blah, blah, blah and yadda, yadda, yadda as a bland series of plotlines are tossed at the audience. None of it makes us care about Jupiter nor this insane outer space world The Wachowskis have created. Instead of giving any of it some complexity or depth, The Wachowskis are content to jump to the next development, which leaves us with a bunch of half baked motivations and characters.

Then, it gets downright silly as Jupiter crosses the galaxy dealing with a ridiculous intergalactic bureaucracy that puts the DMV to shame, all sorts of lawyerly manipulations that fit in better on an episode of Law and Order, and a painfully boring love story as Jupiter starts to fall for Caine, because he might be part dog, but he looks like Channing Tatum.

Jupiter Ascending swings between an epic tone and horribly placed, ill conceived comic relief full of overly cartoonish Russian family members and other CGI characters who would be better served in a child’s movie instead of something attempting to be more adult. They should have loaned out the lizard guys and elephant man to The SpongeBob Movie (Yes, there is some sort of elephant man).

If Channing Tatum enjoyed wearing the eye liner, maybe Jupiter Ascending could be his audition to join Green Day.

Jupiter Ascending is rated PG-13 for some violence, sequences of sci-fi action, some suggestive content and partial nudity.