Review of Jupiter Ascending (2015) by Filmphonic — 19 Jan 2016

A young immigrant domestic cleaner’s life on Earth is shattered when she is discovered as the heir apparent to a dynasty of intergalactic landowners and planet harvesters, only to be pursued by the tyrannical head of the family whom she is determined to fight with the help of a genetically engineered super-soldier.

Writers/Directors The Wachowskis (The Matrix, Cloud Atlas) bring their action-packed “space-opera” to the big screen in a film that’s been described as a cross-between The Matrix and Star Wars, we could not think of a more unmerited comparison.

Sure you can expect all the action and effects that $175million will buy and some impressive visuals as well, but even there some of the effects are decidedly sub-standard and a couple of the entirely-CG characters are borderline laughable.

In the aspects that all films are ultimately judged on, story & characters, Jupiter Ascending leaves a lot to be desired, the plot is fantastical and original while somehow managing to be completely predictable and is ill-served by character performances that are at times reminiscent of a 1950s B-Movie.

There may be a parable in there about capitalism and the exploitation of the common by the powerful but that will be lost in all the explosions and laser-fire, ultimately it’s a journey of characters that you don’t care about and you know what will happen to from the beginning.

Clearly the The Wachowskis have not lost the ability to dream big but with every film since The Matrix there must be a question about their ability to deliver on the promise, we can’t help but think they would be perfectly suited to writing for the many young visionary directors currently out there.

We realize how difficult it must be to make major motion-pictures and obviously no one sets out to make a bad one but we can’t think of many redeeming qualities in Jupiter Ascending, this is not one of those films so bad that they’re good, it’s just quite bad.

We suspect Jupiter Ascending will be confined to the vault where films like Battlefield Earth reside, all action and no substance, this is one of those films you should probably only check-out on a flight.