Look, I’m a huge geek….nerd…whatever. I’m also married to one. We’re happy to discuss the anything from whether the Orcs in Middle Earth are asexual, to which 80’s sci fi movie has the best soundtrack (I’m partial to Dune). If you don’t know wtf I’m even talking about, that’s ok because you get the point. We, as a couple, are exactly the type of people who should have loved Jupiter Ascending. If it didn’t suck.
I don’t think I’ve ever actively thought about walking out of a movie, until this one came along. I didn’t see many of my fellow geek friends discussing JA leading up to it. Normally they’re all over the space opera genre but facebook was pretty quiet. I should have also known this was going to be bad when the theater was about 1/8 full for the opening last night. Not good.
Jupiter Ascending is about Mila Kunis (aka Jupiter Jones), a cleaning lady who finds out she’s the reincarnation of the late “Queen of the Universe”, basically. She has a bounty placed on her head by her alien “son” (played by Eddie Redmayne) since she technically owns earth and he wants to harvest the humans to create a serum that keeps him looking young for thousands of years. Jupiter escapes his and his siblings’ clutches about a million times with the help of Channing Tatum (aka Caine Wise). He’s a defective former soldier who is an albino and is spliced with the DNA of a wolf. If that sounds really stupid to read, imagine trying to take Tatum seriously when he talks about it on screen. Pointy ears and all.
Despite the jaw dropping visuals and design, this movie lacks emotional connection to the characters. They were so flat and boring that I didn’t even care what happened to them. Their love story didn’t make any sense, as they had zero chemistry and barely enough time to even fall in love in the first place. I felt embarrassed for the actors. I kept wondering if they knew how overly dramatic their performances sounded. At one point my husband, Dustin, looked over at me and asked “What’s with Eddie Remayne’s Voldemort impression?” Yeah, it’s that bad. To make matters worse, the whole ‘history of humans settling the universe’ back story was too complicated and too much info for one story. Everything was rushed and the flow was terrible.
The worst part about the fact that this movie is going to bomb, is the loss of potential for a strong female sci fi lead. We need more of those in Hollywood. We need audiences and producers to want to give money to see women in a genre that is typically male dominated. Jupiter is so blah as a lead and she still has to get saved by the guy over and over. Where are the Ellen Ripley characters? She kicked so much butt in the Alien movies and I am desperate to see that kind of leading lady have a successful sci fi series again. Fingers crossed that the new Star Wars films have amazing women that the next generation of young geeks can look up to.
Did you see Jupiter Ascending this weekend? Who out there liked it? Tell us why!
WRITTEN BY NATASHA
Natasha’s Current Obsessions:Historical dramas, travel, bears, beets, Battlestar Galactica, sometimes Outlander, always Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, cats, and becoming the geeky version of Martha Stewart. Follow her on Instagram @Bieberfish
