Review ‘Jupiter Ascending’ From The Editor

Almost every movie about the future is really about the present. In “Star Trek,” the universe of competing powers — the Federation versus the Romulans and Klingons — was really just a blown-out version of the Cold War, with NATO pitted against China and the Soviet Union.

Nearly 50 years later, Andy and Lana Wachowski make entertainment out of a host of modern anxieties in “Jupiter Ascending,” envisioning a future universe in which a handful of elites control technology and can live indefinitely. Meanwhile, the great masses of people live short, manipulated lives of meaninglessness and doom.

“Jupiter Ascending” is a film very much of its moment, in ways both good and bad. But the important thing is that its virtues are extraordinary, while its flaws are easy to forget because they’re so common. Many of the action sequences, showing various spacecraft descending into cities to fly between buildings, are dull and not well choreographed. Watching them is like staring at a big computer screen.

How many times have you heard that?

After the death of their mother, three siblings have one goal in mind – capture the one who is next in line for Earth (Jupiter Jones) before the other does. Each sibling has different plans for Jupiter Jones, and we get to see each of them in tedious and confusing scenes.

One of the brothers, Balem (Eddie Redmayne), has hired Caine to bring Jupiter to him. However, after discovering Balem’s intentions (and falling for Jupiter along the way), Caine’s mission is to safe Jupiter. Or at least, they try to fool us into thinking they fell in love in the 12 hours of being together, because their chemistry is awful.

Earth isn’t the only planet that the siblings have fought over. They each own their fair share of planets and “harvest” its inhabitants to maintain their youth (they are all thousands of years old). This whole time, Jupiter is unalarmed by traveling through planets, talking reptile creatures, and learning she owns the Earth. The whole film she acts bored, which isn’t exactly the behavior of someone who is kidnapped by aliens.

This is something else great about the Wachowskis: They know everyone will identify with this, because they understand the insane combination of boundless paranoia and grandiosity that is within every human being.

Soon, creepy little guys — the evil cousins of the “Close Encounters” aliens — show up to kill her, but she is rescued by Caine (Channing Tatum), who is half wolf and half man. The man part makes him feasible, and the wolf part makes him dangerous, so he’s ideal boyfriend material.

In “Jupiter Ascending,” the Wachowskis provide the audience with information on a need-to-know basis, so to describe what follows is to impart more understanding than the viewer should have. Suffice it to say, Caine is working for powerful entities, and Jupiter’s task, almost from start to finish, is to navigate the politics and shifts in a universe she barely understands.

The first hint that “Jupiter Ascending” is something more than “John Carter” with star appeal is a long conversation between Jupiter and Kalique (Tuppence Middleton), a member of the universe’s ruling family. Kalique, a cheerful woman with a motherly appeal, lays out the joys and possibilities of living in this new world. Her description is genuinely seductive. Yet implicit in everything she says is a blithe, underlying cruelty.

Instead, Jupiter is more concerned on the shoes that Caine is wearing – flying skates that allow him to fly and fight the bad guys. Confused? Yeah, so was the entire audience at the screening I attended.

Eddie Redmayne, as the most ambitious of the ruling elite, almost qualifies on his own as a reason to see the movie. He plays a neurasthenic monster, a cousin to every Caligula who has ever chewed the scenery, and his mode is to speak in a breathy mumble and then, occasionally, just scream out of nowhere.

In a way, it’s an amazingly horrible performance, an example of what can happen when an easy-going young actor makes the mistake of doing whatever his directors tell him. Going into the Oscar vote, in which Redmayne is Michael Keaton’s chief competitor, Keaton really should be sending the Wachowskis a fruit basket. Perhaps flowers, too, but at minimum a basket with nice pears, different kinds of apples and maybe a pineapple.

Yet here’s the thing: If Redmayne were truly horrible in “Jupiter Ascending,” why is he one of the most enjoyable things about it? As charming as Kunis is — she has a wit and comic timing that reminds me a little of Carole Lombard — people will be walking out of the movie talking about Redmayne, and no one will be sorry they saw him.

“Jupiter Ascending” is now in theaters. The sci-fi adventure is an unnecessary 2 hours and 5 minutes long, it is rated PG-13 for violence, sequences of sci-fi action, some suggestive content and partial nudity.