Story: Jupiter
(Kunis), a janitor, hates her dreary daily existence. She scrubs
toilets for a living and dreams about a better, more purposeful
existence. However, her destiny transcends washrooms, aliens and even
planets. After a part-human hunter named Caine (Tatum) rescues her, she
finds out, to her disbelief, that she actually 'owns' the Earth.
Review: Jupiter
Ascending can be distilled down to a cosmic family tale involving
planetary inheritances, sibling scheming, inadequately-explained
references to genetic theory and plenty of action in between. In theory,
this may sound like an imaginative mix, but what we get is an
essentially simple story told in an overly (and perhaps needlessly)
convoluted manner.
Jupiter, of the aforesaid existential existence, is at the focal point
of this story. After Caine, the cyberpunk super-soldier who speeds
around in jet-boots, rescues her from a bunch of aliens (a role he will
reprise throughout the film), they head to a safe house owned by his old
comrade Stinger (Bean) where he breaks the news to her that she is,
among other things, royalty. Jupiter is then kidnapped and taken to
Kalique Abrasax (Middleton) in space, who further explains that Jupiter
is a perfect genetic 'recurrence' of her deceased mother Seraphi,
matriarch of an intergalactic royal family who owned planets and
harvested its people for their genetic essence - the coveted fountain of
youth.
As Jupiter now owns the Earth (thanks to her genetic
makeup), Kalique needs her as part of the plan to harvest Earth. Her
brothers, the suave Titus (Booth) and uber-villainous Balem (Redmayne)
also need Jupiter to sign away her ownership of Earth. Despite the dazzling effects and stellar art direction (also, more hairstyle variations than actual characters),
skimps on fleshed-out performances and offers little substance to chew
on, compared to say, 1999's Matrix by the Wachowskis and easily their
best in terms of scale-meets-mythology. The Jupiter-Caine love story
angle falls flat but it is Redmayne's deliciously evil, ruthless Balem
who you actually want to see more of. Thankfully though, there is enough
originality in here to please hardcore sci-fi fans.
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