Preface

• There are two quick ways of me describing me this movie.
• “So you know those movie mistake sections in, like, People Magazine? Those ones where it’s like, oh she was wearing this color nail polish in one shot, but the next shot she isn’t wearing any. You know those? Yeah, that’s this entire movie.”
• Or……
• “This movie kinda reminds me of The Phantom Menace had a kid with Prometheus and that kid is being water-boarded by Divergent. And yeah, that ain’t good.”

Cast & Characters

• So Mila Kunis is the lead in this movie, and yeah she works fine in it.
  • My problem is that her character doesn’t change even a little bit throughout the movie which is supposed to be, ya know, the point of the movie.
  • But really any other actress could’ve played her. I like that Mila Kunis is getting work though cuz she’s a good actress.
• Channing Tatum has been billed as the lead actor in this movie which is COMPLETELY misleading.
  • He kinda has the role in this that Ron Weasley had in the final Harry Potter movie: less than 15 lines and barely a role.
  • He feels about as important in Jupiter Ascending as Thanos did in Guardians of the Galaxy.
• And their chemistry is really weird in the movie.
  • Of course you know that these two are gonna be put into a forced romance.
  • But the problem is, the romance has no basis in the movie!
    • Sure Cha-Cha saved Mila a couple times, but other than her complaining about chasing the wrong guys, the relationship has no real foundation for existing.
  • But now we’re getting down to it. Yeah IT. Eddie Redmayne.
    • I heard this story, and I don’t know if it’s true or not, but it sounds true and I’d believe it: I heard that Eddie Redmayne was pulled from all press on this movie because he was so horrifically bad in it, his agents didn’t want his Oscar chances to be hurt.
    • And at first I thought that was hilarious, but now I realize it’s true.
    • Speaking of Harry Potter-ish, he’s doing his Lord Voldemort impersonation with his Richard Harris voice, and it’s the most off-the-wall villain I’ve seen in I don’t even know how long!
    • He completely sunk this movie down a peg even further than it was…
  • Sean Bean’s in the movie, and like every movie he’s in, Sean Bean was good in the movie.
  • But other than the main four, you have a myriad of useless supporting characters who will be introduced once, forgotten about immediately, then brought back later once they’re completely gone from your memory.

Writing

• Okay, I know you guys really want me to turd all over this movie, but honestly it had some good parts.
• The first 30-35 minutes were actually not that bad.
  • Granted they weren’t breaking any new ground, but the sci-fi elements were really cool and old-school, and it all felt interesting.
• And then they went into space…
  • It felt like once the crew of this movie went into space, everything got REALLY confusing with the sci-fi mumbo jumbo, and everything was like the Star Wars prequels where it was all fated to happen, and ultimately, the scale got too big for the movie.
• Once the characters got into space this movie went all over the place!
  • It was kinda messy from the get-go, but it was focused enough you could see maybe where it was going.
  • But when they got into space, the entire storyboard was thrown out the window and no end was in sight. No end at all friends.
• And in space, this movie tried to be a copy of LITERALLY every other movie, even worse than that Ninja Turtles piece of crap!
  • It tried to be Lord of the Rings at a point.
  • It tried to be Gladiator and 300
  • It tried to be Star Wars, Star Trek, Guardians of the Galaxy (ironic cuz this was supposed to come out before Guardians)
  • It felt like Percy Jackson: The Lightning Thief, the movie version because you really want to like it, but it’s ultimately just too confused about what it wants to be.
• Also, comic relief in this movie: toss-up. It was chuckle-worthy at a couple points, but TOTALLY off most of the time.
• And yep, the pacing and timing of this movie were completely off too.
  • If this movie were cut down by like 25 minutes it would’ve probably been too short for the linking of the WB, but it would’ve been a lot better.
• The writing got so honest-to-God boring at a point in this movie that I got up and left, used the bathroom, walked into Kingsman: The Secret Service (the movie I should’ve seen) for a couple minutes, then walked back to the theater, just to wake myself up!
  • How boring does it have to get?

Direction

• Despite that rant on the writing, the direction of this movie wasn’t that bad.
• I thought the visuals were good except for at the end.
  • The last 30-35 felt a LITTLE bit like the Wachowskis had taken a class at the Michael Bay School of Action Directing, though the rest of the movie had really great visuals and a really great look through.
• And despite my problems with the scope getting too big, the Wachowskis do at least have the ambition to do a project like this that at least has originality to it, so I give them props on going after a really creative project to at least give it a shot on.
  • Because at the end of the day, the effort is what brings this movie up a peg for me.

In Conclusion

• In Conclusion, this movie isn’t nearly as bad as Unbroken, Transformers 4 or some other movies I saw in 2014.
  • It definitely wouldn’t have made my ‘Worst of’ list had it come out last year, like it was supposed to.
• The visuals were good, Mila Kunis wasn’t bad, the first half hour was good.
• But ultimately the script gets really sloppy and too hard-to-follow about an hour in, making the rest of the movie more boring to watch.
• Back when I started this site, I was originally gonna do little phrase ratings, and the second lowest was gonna be, “It’s Alright, But You Probably Have Something Better To Do.”
  • And that really summarizes this movie, cuz I could’ve flown through about 8 more episodes of 30 Rock instead.
• I do give the directors credit for their effort though, and the effort was felt in the final product, so I can’t totally crap on this one.

2/5

• And trust me, Eddie Redmayne isn’t gonna win that Oscar anyway.

***

So guys those are my thoughts on Jupiter Ascending. What are your thoughts? If you’ve seen this movie, let me know what you thought of it in the comments down below, and as always, thanks for reading guys.