Welcome back to the To Infinity Retrospective. A SERIES CREATED IN PREPARATION FOR RISE OF SKYWALKER! Oh! Dear me. Don’t know what just happened there. Anyway, EACH MONTH, I REVIEW A DIFFERENT SPACE OPERA! Goodness, I’m so embarrassed. I promise that won’t happen again. Anyway, this month, we’re looking at Jupiter Ascending. What’s it about? Well…
While waiting in the doctor’s office to sell her eggs, Chicago maid Jupiter Jones is attacked by aliens. At the last minute, however, she is saved by Caine Wise, a genetically-enhanced soldier who explains that Jupiter is the reincarnation of Madame Abrasax, the true owner of the planet Earth. See, in this world, planets are commodities that get bought and sold. They’re populated with humans, and then those humans are harvested to create a rejuvenating serum that’s sold to the highest bidder. The Abrasax siblings know about Jupiter, they’re the ones who sent the assassins, and they each want her for their own nefarious reasons. What follows is a series of chases, speeches, a fake wedding, a Brazil parody, and a really uneven Eddie Redmayne performance. And, sue me, I kind of admire it.
Jupiter Ascending is a weird, weird film. So weird that you can’t help but be amazed it exists. It’s not based off any pre-existing source material, and the mythology doesn’t really make sense. But because the directors, Lily and Lana Wachowski, had had so much success with The Matrix, they were allowed to do whatever they wanted. And what they wanted was to make an original, campy, convoluted Space Opera. Which is honestly kind of admirable.
But being admirable and being good aren’t the same thing, and, as a film, Jupiter Ascending is pretty terrible. The acting, particularly from Eddie Redmayne, who vacillates between whispering his lines and screaming them at the top of his lungs, is awful. The film really doesn’t have a story; it’s just a series of chases followed by long-winded monologues explaining the world. The dialogue is extremely wooden, and there are tons of really weird, seemingly random elements thrown in, which I can’t tell if the Wachowskis intended as jokes or not. For instance, Jupiter is attracted to Caine, who explains that he has more in common with a dog than her, and she responds with “I love dogs. I’ve always loved dogs.” Are you kidding me? I really don’t know if these were meant to be jokes, or if the Wachowskis genuinely thought that was good writing. I do think there is an interesting mythology in here, and that if the Wachowskis had laid the world out to another, more talented writer, like Scott Frank, it could have worked. Noble houses fighting over possession of a planet that contains a precious substance is basically the plot of Frank Herbert’s Dune. But, as it is, this film’s interesting, original mythology is bogged down by bad dialogue, bad acting, and too much exposition.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZoCyL_Pqzu8
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