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IT is an exciting year for the science fiction genre. The schedule is packed with blockbuster after blockbuster, with some of the biggest names in cinema making a grand return.
Therefore, being a totally new franchise and first out of the blocks this year, Jupiter Ascending had a big chance to set the tone for what was to come and prove that sci-fi can be just as thrilling without having to bring back an established name to sell tickets.
On a visual level, it succeeds, but the writing and overall story is complete guff.
For these two components are the most vital when watching sci-fi. The visuals need to be top notch and actually make you believe that you are in a futuristic world or outer space, otherwise everything looks a bit amateurish. The story can be as ridiculous as it likes (the glory of sci-fi is that you can make up the rules and even break them on a whim with some quirky explanation), but it needs to remain consistent and have a purpose, with it all tying together at the end.
One without the other makes a bad movie, and Jupiter Ascending lacks any semblance of sense or coherency.
The premise seems simple enough; the alien House of Abrasax is a powerful dynasty that has seeded life on thousands of planets across the universe. After civilisation reaches their maximum evolutionary potential, they are harvested en masse to produce a youth serum that allows the aliens to live forever.
After the Abrasax matriarch dies, her three children squabble over the inheritance and in particular, who gets control of the planet Earth. Would you believe it, it’s supposedly the most important planet in the whole harvesting process! What are the chances …
Anyway, down on our wonderfully important planet, our preposterously pretty protagonist Jupiter (Kunis) is scrubbing toilets by day and dabbling in astronomy at night. It turns out that she is much more important than she realises, and when alien creatures under the command of the Abrasax family swoop down to nab her for their nefarious schemes, the implausibly handsome Caine (Tatum) races in on his gravity boots to save the day.
Sadly, the premise does not match the reality. It often seems like the writers came up with a first draft of the script and then just decided to go with it rather than fine comb through it to tie it all together.
The plot has more holes than Swiss cheese, expositional jargon pummels us into confused submission, and, most criminally of all, characters drop in and out at will with little explanation as to who they are or why they’re there. Even important characters who make dramatic entrances and grand revelations are set up to play a vital part … and are then never seen again.
Even ‘The Greatest Man Alive’, Sean Bean, (not his official title, but it should be) makes a frustrating appearance as a grizzled ex-soldier that straddles the line between good guy and bad guy so often you just stop caring.
The visuals are lush though, with bright colours and grandiose futuristic architecture puncturing our retinas at regular intervals. Special effects are dolloped on thick, sometimes too thick, but they are believable throughout, particularly in a stunning chase scene through the skyscrapers and streets of Chicago.
Action scenes are a little bit of a blur, with camera angles transitioning so fast it’s hard to see who is who while explosions are going off and laser shots are ricocheting everywhere, but there is an awesome fight between Caine and a large lizard henchman that ends with one of the coolest deaths I’ve seen in a while.
The two leads share some funny dialogue, but it’s clear they were cast for their eye candy value rather than their chemistry, as quite frankly their blatantly forced romance kicks up a stink.
It’s a shame that the Wachowski siblings, who broke new ground with The Matrix all those years ago and reinvented what sci-fi films could be, have failed to replicate it since. This latest effort reaches for the stars, but ultimately ends up lost in space.
