In the hours and days following one’s first encounter with something as massive, expensive, unwieldy, and utterly weird as “Jupiter Ascending,” confusion is to be expected.
Few movies so successfully uproot an audience in such a way that traditional notions of things such as time, cause and effect, and the very meaning of what’s good and what’s bad essentially cease to exist. This is a movie that will be remembered, I believe, alongside such famously terrible movies as “Troll 2” and “The Room.”
But is it really so terrible, or is it one of those movies that’s just being mistaken as bad, because it’s so audacious and different? As a fan of the Wachowski’s body of work – at least until now – I’d like to believe this, but the evidence suggests that this particular folly impresses for reasons that are mostly less than flattering. “Jupiter Ascending” is caught somewhere between the great and terrible, and that it exists at all is amazing. (Although one might’ve also said the same about the Hindenburg.) I can’t sincerely recommend it to anyone who wants a relaxing or quote-unquote enjoyable night at the movies, but I wouldn’t for a second try to stop you from seeing it.
This gaudy, borderline-incomprehensible tale of an intergalactic conspiracy involving royal lineage, a Cinderella romance, the fate of the human race, and Channing Tatum as a half-dog is the product of the Wachowskis, the sibling filmmakers who brought us “The Matrix” and a small host of other cinematic doodles, from their slow-burning thriller “Bound” to the overlooked “Speed Racer.” A proper summary of this film, if it’s even possible, would take up the rest of this column. After about 20 minutes, I stopped caring about keeping up with the various characters, planets, species, and their motivations. After 30 minutes, I stopped trying, and accepted my fate as a willing ticketholder.
More so than its convoluted sci-fi plot, “Jupiter Ascending” stands as another testament to its filmmakers’ penchant for stylized action, fetish attire, and bodily modifications, and the sheer volume of imagery they throw on the screen results in one part sensory overload, one part unbridled camp. The money is there on the screen, in visions of spaceships diving into the red eye of the titular planet, or the lavish wardrobes adorned by thousands of humanoids creatures, but there’s nothing that grounds this world – nothing to suggest a pulse that extends beyond the screen, save for expositional dialogue that many will understandable block out as white noise. For instance: The fact that they explain the futuristic cross-breeding of humans and animals doesn’t lessen the guffaws when a literal elephant man makes an impromptu appearance.
“Jupiter” is the first of the Wachowski’s movies to completely unravel, and there’s plenty of blame to spread around. The performances range from the hyper-posturing to the apathetic, and the lack of connective tissue between and within individual scenes suggests a studio-mandated nip-n-tuck in an effort to turn their investment into something more palatable. On top of it all, the Wachowskis present their vision with a take-it-or-leave-it-indifference.
Such bold filmmaking is thrilling when good, and interminable when miscalculated, and friend and writer Matt Seitz’s words about the more recent work of George Lucas also apply here: Andy and Lana Wachowski have managed to levitate entire cities, but have forgotten how to use a knife and fork. Originally scheduled for release last summer, it’s now being dumped into theaters to salvage a small pittance of what was once hoped to attract – and if Eddie Redmayne fails to win an Oscar later this month, oral history will dictate that his performance in this film was the reason why.
“Jupiter Ascending” is now playing in theaters nationwide.
Robert Humanick is a contributing writer for slantmagazine.com
Follow Rob on Twitter @rhumanick
