The earth spins on, but unknown to humanity – a species whose origin, it turns out, is extraterrestrial – our entire planet is just a valuable piece of real estate at stake in the squabbling of a trio of heirs to a galactic dynasty.
This is at the heart of Andy and Lana Wachowski’s Jupiter Ascending, a marriage of space opera and Cinderella that meanders between fabulous fairytale, high-adrenaline action, and a tepid satire of interplanetary capitalism as toothless as it is rudimentary.
Mila Kunis stars as Jupiter Jones, a menial worker who cleans expensive homes – the film’s depiction is heavy on bathrooms – and lives with her Russian immigrant mother and extended family in Chicago.
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Jupiter Ascending Directed by Andy and Lana Wachowski. |
In a strange example of offbeat comic relief motivating plot, Jupiter is convinced to sell some of her ova for cash by her cousin Vladie, whose convincing takes the form of a rude invocation of the capitalist spirit.
But when Jupiter visits a fertility clinic, the doctors confirm her identity and suddenly try to kill her. Their attempt is frustrated only by the arrival of Caine Wise (Channing Tatum), a bio-engineered hunter whose DNA is just half human, the other half coming from “something like a wolf.”
Equipped with gravity-manipulating boots that allow him to surf through the air, Caine – who has just faced off against a trio of bounty hunters in a high-calibre aerial ballet through Chicago’s skyline – rescues Jupiter and introduces her to his old comrade in arms, Stinger (Sean Bean), who is a “splice” like Caine, only half-bee.
Before long, Jupiter is whisked off-planet to be presented to Kalique (Tuppence Middleton) and Titus (Douglas Booth), the second and third heirs of the Abrasax dynasty, from whom Jupiter finally learns she is a genetic reincarnation of the late family matriarch. And only by exercising her own claim of title to Earth can she prevent the foremost heir, Balem (Eddie Redmayne), from initiating a harvest that will doom all terrestrial human life.
Jupiter Ascending slyly presents a few clever parallels, including an opening voiceover in which Jupiter describes herself as an alien – referring only to immigration. In the same vein, Jupiter’s reassuring herself over having her eggs harvested for pay is cross-cut with a discussion between cosmic aristocrats about planetary harvesting, which depletes a living world to produce an elixir of eternal youth for the galactic one percent.
Even the astronomy reference of the film’s title cannily links the idea of a fate inscribed in the heavens at birth with the heroine’s all-too-real interplanetary destiny and the upward arc that delivers her there.
But the rest is witless, from the arbitrary (and, in terms of character building, fruitless) half-wolf and half-bee allies to Balem’s Goomba-like reptile-henchmen or the fact that wispy Kunis and slender Redmayne are actually made to wallop one another at the climax.
Kunis, exuding her own brand of laid-back charm, makes for an effortlessly likeable protagonist, but she only gets to breathe easy for a few minutes at the outset before spending most of the film giving a subdued performance as someone overwhelmed and ill at ease, with the occasional breakthrough of plucky determination.
Tatum’s role, meanwhile, consists mostly of shirtless acrobatics and ambiguously prurient sidelong glances at Jupiter.
Redmayne, as the Abrasax scion, comports himself with all the icy hauteur of Meryl Streep in The Devil Wears Prada, speaking only in a whisper until the moment fury erupts in a shriek. As head honcho in a cosmic mishmash of capitalism and dynastic aristocracy, in which incessant talk of profit margins and commodities comes off as tedious more than insightful or funny, Redmayne nevertheless seems utterly in control playing a character who is much less so.
Unfortunately, the farther the story progresses, the more muddled and less interesting the plot becomes – including a by-rote betrayal and a will-she-or-won’t-she marriage proposal – and the action sequences likewise, even as the stakes rise. The obligatory final duel between Caine and a reptilian warrior, though it is far too long to be called perfunctory, gives the impression it was done quite literally out of a sense of obligation.
More memorable than the characters or the stakes are the spaceships like exotic fish, the fantastic matrimonial trappings of the galactic elite, and an outpost inside Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, where all is decided.
That is, the Wachowskis have by no means lost their eye for thrilling visuals, but as with Caine’s gravity boots and the many scenes of chasing and fighting, what begins as impressive slowly loses its impact and eventually drags when it continues overlong.
At this point, the Wachowskis have cemented themselves as intermittent sci-fi visionaries with wildly inconsistent output, along the same lines as Neill Blomkamp. But to continue that comparison, Jupiter Ascending is much more Elysium than District 9.