Jupiter Ascending

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski/Starring: Channing Tatum, Mila Kunis, Eddie Redmayne, Sean Bean and Maria Doyle Kennedy

I think the Wachowskis' would like to think of themselves as visionary filmmakers but with films like The Matrix, Cloud Atlas and now Jupiter Ascending serving as standouts in their shabby oeuvre, I think of them more as merchants of flash and trash; writer/directors who spend gobs on visuals but can't write a story that floats or characters with any more depth than a thimble. Their latest follows in that tradition and in spite of said visuals, it is nothing more than junk with a glossy coat of dazzling color.

I expect to see an actress with Mila Kunis' slight acting ability ham about in this mess, but we've just seen Channing Tatum and Eddie Redmayne in Oscar-nominated films, which leads me to ask; what gives, fellas? Did your bank accounts really need the padding?

I'll leave those rhetorical questions to focus on the movie at hand.

And boy, is this film a bore! Cluttered visuals, pointless, vapid action scenes and film frames crowded with bodies that utter ridiculously inane dialogue effectively characterize this movie. Good thing I didn't shell out $16 bucks for the 3D version.

The story, which is kind of hard to follow--not because of a labyrinthine brilliance but rather its busy incoherence--takes place on Earth and in space. The main character, Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis); the daughter of an English astrophysicist and a Russian mother, earns her name at her birth, where a relative notes Jupiter's position in the night sky. But the name also owes something to her father's interest in astronomical phenomena. He spends much of his time gazing at the stars through his telescope until, for no reason the filmmakers or the characters can explain, Russian thugs break into their home, rob the premises and making off with his beloved telescope. When he tries to stop them, they put a bullet in him, thus ending his star-gazing past-time.

The family is subsequently reduced to cleaning homes to earn an ignominious living, as is Jupiter, who scrubs toilets without complaint.

But elsewhere in our galaxy, we find the family Abrasax; a royal family of considerable power and wealth who rule over their domain with arrogance and presumption. The leader is Balem Abrasax (Eddie Redmayne), the evil patriarch who violently deposed his own mother to secure the throne. Under his thumb are his siblings, Kalique (Tuppence Middleton) and Titus (Douglas Booth), whose lives and roles in the family are no more secure than that of their late mommy.

A large part of the Abrasax power resides in the substance they harvest from humans; one that provides longevity and almost eternal youth. Increasing their supply means controlling the source, namely Earth, which is the cause of many of family squabbles. Balem's plans for Earth involve exploiting its population, which means denuding the planet of any human life; a hostile, destructive agenda he has accomplished with scores of other planets.

And what does our heroine, Jupiter Jones, have to do with all this? Turns out she is the reincarnation of the murdered Abrasax matriarch though she doesn't know it, which naturally makes her the target of Balem's Machiavellian, murderous designs. Jupiter discovers her royal connection the hard way when bounty hunters are dispatched to Earth to cancel her life. But she also discovers that she has a guardian angel of sorts, a genetically-engineered soldier named Caine Wise (Channing Tatum, saddled with a dopey character name) who is trying to redeem his career after a disaster earlier in his career (I have to give the Wachowski's credit for making genetic-engineering of prime importance in the futuristic goings on in space).

Caine's military suit is equipped with hi-tech footwear with its own means of propulsion, which allows him incredible, surfer-like mobility. Caine fights off various baddies who have come to Earth to do Jupiter Jones harm while also trying to enlist the help of an angry former colleague who is residing on Earth named Stinger Apini (Sean Bean).

Are you getting all this? If you find my synopsis wanting or I've carelessly omitted some key plot points, please bear with me; I was trying to keep the story straight while fending off hellish boredom. It wasn't easy!

So the reader (and viewer) can see where all this will lead. Jupiter will try to regain the throne with Caine's help as they become romantically involved while Earth's future hangs in the balance and blah, blah, blah.

I've noticed a certain phenomenon has overcome big budget action spectacles the last ten years or so and it leads me to ask: How does Hollywood (and the Wachowskis') manage to put the audience to sleep with so much ear-splitting noise and carnage on the screen? My head was nearly hanging on my chest before being snapped awake while Channing Tatum surfed around and Mila Kunis fell from great heights and long shots of a planet smothered in orbital habitats and nonsensical flotsam littered the screen.

Needless to say I couldn't wait for it all to end.

The film chokes on its own silliness quotient and believe me, there is a lot of it. I don't know what the thinking was behind Channing Tatum's look, but he resembled a satyr dressed for a night of clubbing rather than a hard-nosed soldier. Mila Kunis' lack of wonder or incredulity just made her seem like a dumb Miss America contestant who can't think beyond her Maybelline. Of course she was cast for sex appeal and her ability to fit into snug, cosmic couture. If there was any real chemistry between Kunis and Tatum, it was squelched by all the commotion onscreen.

Eddie Redmayne was hilariously miscast but he gives it the old college try, though the curious, modulated voice he affects made him seem less threatening than Stephen Hawking.

If you're like me, you might have found the trailer very off-putting, with its brain-frying and intelligence-trying CGI. I hate to say the film is just more of the same, without respite or anything for the mind to feed on. I'm sure I'm overstating it, but this film is a vacuous waste of time.

I invite the Wachowskis' to see Interstellar if they want to know what entertaining, thought-provoking science fiction can be. If their goal was to make a dumbed-down space opera, then I guess they attained their creative goal.

Should I say more? Not necessary. I just hope the Wachowskis' refrain from turning this story into a saga. That would be criminal.