Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Movie review: Jupiter Ascending



Every once and a while a film comes along and makes you sit up and say "wow!"  For a lot of people in the 90's, that movie was "The Matrix"  Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the film, but it has never been the be all to end all to me that many people make it out to be.
Since then, I've seen a pretty predictable trend with the Wachowski's:  Their movies are visually interesting and the story somewhat mirror's a Jackson Pollock painting.  Jupiter Ascending is no different.

It should be noted that Jupiter Ascending was originally targeted for a July or August 2014 release and was abruptly pulled three weeks from release. I now know why.  There are a lot of similarities story and thematic wise between JA and Guardians of the Galaxy and GotG is the far superior movie. If I had to guess I think a studio exec got to see Guardians early and realized it would be the blockbuster that it turned out to be and wanted JA to have some chance of making its money back.

I've already posted on Facebook that the story was an unholy mess and I mean it.  It's not that this is a "bad" story but rather one that that clearly had a ton of backstory ripped out in favor of a short running time.  I don't think that's a bad thing either.  But it makes for a linear adventure that really called for a mini-series worth of material wrapped in a movie that was 20 minutes too long.

I personally think the Wachowski's are in the wrong business.  Their world building is interesting enough to fill a larger canvas than the theater screen and combined with their visual sense of style they really would be better off creating a persistent world video game universe that evolved with different episodes or expansions.

With that said, the story was not particularly original.  I saw elements of Flash Gordon, the second Riddick film (reinforced by visuals) Harry Potter, the Incredibles and any number of battle veteran cliché's.
 
So with the story as piecemeal as it was, did the acting hold up? 

Once again, I go back to the Wachowski's and their tendencies.  Look, Keanu Reeves may never win an academy award, but if you've ever seen Sam Raimi's "The Gift" you know he's got more range than the wooden faced emotionlessness of his character in "The Matrix."  And that's been one of my big problems with the Wachowski's direction of actors; every character interacts within the film with a dispassion that borders on emotionally numb.  

Jupiter Ascending is no different. Mila Kunis is playing her role without a sense of wonder or passion that it called for.  Channing Tatum could have been great in this role.  His character is a genetic splicing of human and lupine but damned if I ever saw the wolf in him. As someone who has written a short story in second person about a man turning into a wolf I'm almost ashamed that my story has more passion in the character than what's on the screen from Tatum.  

So you can argue that this is just the choice of actors, but really, every Wachowski film I've seen has the same dispassion from every character which is why I lay the actor's performance not in a limitation in their range but rather the direction they were given.

Another issue I had with the direction is the visuals and the pacing on the film.  This was definitely a "visual overload" film that was broken up almost into the pacing of slow exposition, overwhelming action in a cycle that pushed you into an almost numb state at times.  I didn't see this in 3D and am incredibly happy I didn't as I suspect the extra layer might have been enough for me to leave the theater. 

Now, that's not to say I did not enjoy the visuals.  The CGI was for the most part absolutely stunning and the color pallet that the Wachowski's chose for the film was very appropriate for the film, but there were times as if it felt as if I were watching the Chronicles of Riddick for the artistic choices in the film. 

So was there a standout in the film?  Absolutely, the sound on the film was spectacular.  The audio (ADR) within the film, from the background sounds to the "big battle" sounds all had the appropriate impact.  The score was also grandiose and operatic in places where it needed to convey a grand sense of scale.

With all that said, where do I stand on Jupiter Ascending?  I was certainly entertained for a $5.00 matinee, but really I probably would have been just as happy to wait for cable.