Jupiter Ascending

A bland and lifeless sci-fi porridge starring two very bored-looking leads, Jupiter Ascending sees the Wachowskis full of ideas and ambition but empty of story and sense.

Jupiter Jones (Kunis) is a Russian immigrant cleaning toilets to make ends meet. Encouraged by her cousin to harvest her eggs for cash, the procedure brings her into contact with ‘keepers’, aliens employed by Lord Balem (Redmayne), heir to the galactic Abrasax dynasty. He ‘owns’ Earth, which he plans to harvest, and doesn’t need Jupiter, rumoured to have the genetic makeup of their late mother, and thus the queen of Earth/the universe popping up to claim ownership. This rubber-stamping family do things by the book, see. So with assassins out hunting Jupiter, enter Caine (Tatum), a Kyle Reese type to whisk her away from all this.

The rhythm of fight a bit/explain a bit/romance a bit/fight a bit/explain a bit tires quickly. To be fair, the Wachowskis try to slip the hefty exposition in without too much notice but the Frank Herbert-esque hierarchy of noble houses, allegiances and subjects can confuse. There’s no room to sit down and no time to fully appreciate what’s at stake or allow the eye to take in what were potentially impressive visuals: there’s merely a glimpse of majestic ships rising from space dust before the Wachowskis zip off to another location. Even during the brief conversational scenes, the giddy directors can’t help but circle the actors, Bay-like.

The feminist theme that the universe would benefit from a matriarchal society is welcome but contradicts itself with Kunis little more than rescue-fodder, Tatum swooping in more often than not to save the clueless heroine. Merely an observer to the goings on, there only to ask the necessary questions, she sleepwalks through the movie, unable to shake herself from the stupor to gaze lovingly at Tatum’s human-wolf hybrid. There’s zero spark between them. Redmayne’s whispering, fey villain is at least a step outside the norm.

Men In Black, Fifth Element, Dune and Brazil (the latter a fun take on labyrinthine bureaucracy boasting a Terry Gilliam cameo) are all touched on but Jupiter Ascending never fully emerges from its influences to carve out fresh territory. If only the Matrix directors (still their best film fifteen years on) fully embraced the campy nature of its Flash Gordon story then this could have at least been a laugh. But they didn’t and it’s not.

Not funny enough, not cheesy enough, not good enough.