While comparisons to Star Wars are inevitable, Jupiter Ascending doesn’t take place a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Instead it is mostly set on the planet Jupiter in the present, where, underneath the incessant gaseous storms on its surface, there’s a world dominated by a royal family of humanoid aliens. But it’s not just our solar system’s largest planet this family rules as it has secretly harvested and seeded life on Earth and other planets, which comes as a shock to Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis), who is whisked away from her miserable life as Chicago’s sexiest janitor after her alien queen doppelgänger dies, leaving three heir unapparents to quarrel over who gets to inherit the Earth.
You’re not in Chicago anymore, Jupiter. Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.
With it’s impressive outer space visuals and conspiratorial overtones, my first thought was that this movie is trying really hard to be the next The Matrix. Then I realized it was written and directed by the Wachowskis (formerly known as the Wachowski Brothers until Larry became Lana, a transformation of which I have only recently become aware), so it makes sense that it should have a Matrix-like feel to it. And with its multiple alien races including Roswellian grays that specialize in abducting people and implanting things in them, reptilians and the vampiric royal family (not vampires, though there is a clever line of dialogue acknowledging that they are responsible for many vampire myths), Jupiter Ascending is also reminiscent of films such as The Fifth Element, the aforementioned Star Wars franchise, Flash Gordon and Cloud Atlas (another, underrated, Wachowski venture). Oddly, it’s The Wizard of Oz that ends up coming to mind more and more as the movie progresses.
A dark-haired girl from the Midwest is swept away on a colorful otherworldly adventure, only to yearn for a return home to her mundane life. She’s joined by her (half) canine companion Caine Wise (Channing Tatum), some sort of genetic experiment who has defected from the military to come to Jupiter’s rescue. Jupiter even wears blue plaid for the first act of the film, which makes her all the more Dorothy like. Only instead of being greeted by a scarecrow, a tin man and a lion, she encounters Balem (Eddie Redmayne), Kalique (Tuppence Middleton) and Titus (Douglas Booth), the siblings quarreling over Earth. Because of her resemblance to their deceased mother, Jupiter has now surpassed them as the one who shall inherit the Earth. Apparently she is the reincarnation of the late queen, which doesn’t really make sense considering the queen seems to have only recently died and Jupiter is already an adult.
Imagine if Marty McFly’s futuristic shoes were combined with his hoverboard from “Back to the Future Part III”. That’s basically what Channing Tatum’s wolfman character has for boots in “Jupiter Ascending”. Photo courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures.
That’s not the only thing that’s hard to follow here. For example, Caine wears these really cool boots that allow him to fly through the air, surf off the sides of buildings and hover over pretty much anything that gets in his way. When Jupiter asks how he is able to do these things, he explains that the boots basically turn gravity against itself, creating a reverse magnetism sort of thing that allows him to float freely. However, at one point he is blasted out of a spaceship into zero gravity, with his hands cuffed behind his back. He’s able to escape by maneuvering the shackles under his heels, then using his boots to blast them off his wrists. I’m no scientist, but I don’t understand how antigravity boots are able to be used in this manner, especially when there is no gravity to reverse in deep space. Also, if Caine is basically a wolfman, why does he have the same hairless Tatum body we always see? I mean, he has pointy ears and a heightened sense of smell, so should he not also have at least a little bit of pup fluff to make him a convincing dog man?
These and other flaws, such as a few lines of contrived dialogue that come across as laugh-out-loud cheesy when I’m pretty sure they’re meant to be taken seriously, are what keep this film from ascending to the sci-fi splendor the Wachowski’s intended. Still, it has a bunch of beautiful people (thanks to the Fountain of Youth-like serum the royal family bathes in), ornate costumes, great special effects, some cool creatures and a unique take on various urban myths and conspiracies that keep it from descending into total disappointment.