Jupiter Ascending

It's real hard to come up with an overall positive for the space epic Jupiter Ascending. It was supposed to land last July but wound up here to give it more time in post-production. Maybe they should have spent more time in Pre-Production.

Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) was born to a Russian mother and a dead father. Years later, she cleans houses in Chicago with her mother and aunt. No one on Earth thinks much of Jupiter. So imagine her surprise when everyone in the universe wants her dead or alive.

Jupiter is genetically-identical to the Queen of the Abrasax Dynasty, the biggest Royal House in the Galaxy. That means she's entitled to the Earth itself under Galactic law. The Queen's evil children don't want Jupiter to have it. And also, humans are the special ingredient of their immortality potion.

The evil prince Balem (Eddie Redmayne) sends some goons after Jupiter. The other prince Titus sends the half-wolf rogue Caine Wise (Channing Tatum) to bring Jupiter alive. There's also some other folks who have interest in keeping Jupiter alive. Good luck keeping track of those. And Jupiter finds herself attracted to Caine.

Did you get all that? I think I did.

There's no doubt that this is a good looking movie. Sibling directors/writers Andy and Lana Wachowski populate their movie world with wondrous alien worlds and creatures. The makeup department created many of the imaginative alien monsters and alien humans. One such alien human was a cameo by filmmaker Terry Gilliam, a fact I didn't realize until after the film. No complaints with the visuals.

But the script was dull. I didn't find myself invested in the plight of these characters. All. Of. These. Characters. It was quite hard, to say the least, to keep track of these characters and their motivations. Balem, whom the film presented as an entitled jerk, had a sympathetic backstory revealed in his last minutes. Most of the film's funniest moments were probably meant to be serious.

But it's 127 minutes long, which means it knows when to quit. It's a far cry from The Wachowskis' Speed Racer, which at 135 minutes, was far too long for a kids movie. But unlike this movie, Speed Racer's aesthetics helped me overlook its flaws.

2015 has a few more films held-over from the previous year yet to come. Let's hope any of them are better than Jupiter Ascending. Let's hope any of 2015's other movies are better than this.