Filmworld
'Jupiter Ascending' delivers descending joy (Movie Review)
Film: "Jupiter Ascending"; Cast: Channing Tatum, Mila Kunis, Sean Bean,
Eddie Redmayne, Douglas Booth and Tuppence Middleton; Directors: Lana
Wachowski and Andy Wachowski; Rating: *1/2
With directors Lana
and Andy Wachowski helming this project, "Jupiter Ascending" is a
perfect example of the phrase, "too many cooks spoil the broth".
This
ridiculously convoluted sci-fi tale with a love story thrown in and
mounted on a magnificent scale of an action-epic will certainly be the
cause of Warner Bros' descent into oblivion.
With 'plot' holes
galore, the narration follows Jupiter (Mila Kunis), daughter of an
astrophysicist father and a mathematician mother, living in Russia.
"Born
without a country and home" and after the death of her father, "in the
house of Leo", Jupiter and her mother live with an extended family that
includes her mother's sister and her family. The mother-daughter duo
depends on her aunt's family for subsistence. Jupiter leads a pathetic
life. She is constantly shown cleaning toilets.
Then one fine
day, a bunch of extraterrestrial creatures land up in her room and soon
she is kidnapped. Apparently, she is some royal queen of the planet
Earth.
On the other hand, on the planet Jupiter, royal siblings
older brother Balem (Eddie Redmayne), sister Kalique (Tuppence
Middleton) and younger brother Titus (Douglas Booth) are plotting to
take control of planet Earth. They have been harvesting humans in order
to create a regeneration serum. So they are all out to capture the queen
of planet Earth.
Then there's the half-wolf in shining armour,
Caine (Channing Tatum), with a blonde goatee and elfin ears, who rescues
Jupiter from her captors. He has recently lost his wings and wears
shoes that enable him to lift off the ground and zoom across the sky.
And during the rescue operation and in between inter-planetary
transitions, romance brews between Caine and Jupiter.
Packed with
characters with strange power dynamics and no co-relation or strong
motivation, it is difficult to decipher what is happening on the screen.
The setting too is absurdly off beat and the plot graph lacks logic.
The
performances of the A-list star cast are perfunctory and disappointing,
especially after watching award winning performances from Channing
Tatum in "Foxcatcher" and Eddie Redmayne in "The Theory of Everything".
Also, the chemistry between Mila Kunis and Tatum feels overtly forced.
The
film is technically spectacular with brilliant sets and graphically
designed spacecraft. It is visually beautiful. The graphics and computer
generated effects mesh well with John Toll's images. But the 3D effects
don't add any value to the viewing experience.
Overall, viewing "Jupiter Ascending" with its faulty script is a tedious affair. It leaves you gasping for oxygen.