It Sucks Less than Speed Racer!
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| Jupiter Ascending. Directed by Andy and Lana Wachowski. Warner Bros.: 2015. |
On the other hand, Speed Racer really sucked hard. I'll just
apologize in advance to its seven fans worldwide, but it must be said: instead
of being a movie that had to be made (due to social relevance or whatever) it
was a movie that cried out not to be made. And the blame is squarely with the
Wachowskis, since as co-directors they're responsible for signing off on the
visual look and feel of the film, and the cartoonish colors, etc., while
interesting as a technical experiment, were pretty yucky on the eyes. Plus,
Speed Racer? Really? Cause that's what the world wants to watch these days, a
bunch of meatheads with magnificent hair dashing to and fro in cars? Speed
Racer was super-lame when it first came out (that's right, I said it!), and it
hasn't improved with age.
Circling back to Jupiter Ascending: I know everybody kind of
hates it, apparently, and it's not like it's hard to find things to hate. The
normally energetic Mila Kunis's leaden, all-too-damsel-y performance; the fact
that Channing Tatum's character Caine (real clever, Wachowskis—I see what you
did there with the part-wolf thing, but why not just call him Loopy?) has to swoop
in despite tremendous danger and rescue her from Certain Death at least five
hundred times; and plenty more. It's easy to hate, if you want to focus on the
crappy parts. But why do that, when there's some interesting stuff there too?
Unless we're going in a utilitarian direction, and you get more hedons from
blasting a movie than from enjoying it, I suppose...
For my part, I actually thought Jupiter Ascending was quite
fun to watch (that's right, haters—I said that too!). This is despite it having
a weak plot, singularly unconvincing romance betwixt (I get bonus points for
using betwixt!) Kunis and Tatum, way too long running length, and a cartoonishly
sinister, ridiculously histrionic performance by the Main Bad Guy (I can't
remember the name of either the character or the actor, and who cares, really?
It's the guy who played Marius in the most recent movie version of Les
Miserables, unless said guy donated his lips in the first-ever successful lip
transplant!). With its many flaws, what on earth did I like about it, you might
ask?
Well, for starters, kudos to the Wachowskis for coming up
with something new, especially considering we're now living in a world of 90%
sequels (I'm looking at you, every action movie this year!). It's hard to
launch an entirely new mythology, and sooo seductive just to sink back into the
sweet stupor of the Marvel Cinematic Universe or whatever. They created
something new, and even though it's a bit crappy, it's an intriguing idea, involving
some creepy genetic harvesting reminiscent (unsurprisingly!) of the
"...turn human beings into one of these" idea from the Matrix. Plus,
Channing Tatum and Sean Bean deliver some good stuff, and Mila Kunis in the
first quarter or so, that make it entertaining to watch.
Secondly—and perhaps more tellingly—I watched it on a plane,
and I'm always in a super-suggestive, overly emotional state on planes (I cry
at just about every movie anyway, but on planes it gets so ridiculous I have to
grab huge handfuls of kleenex just so I can soak up the heart-soaring emotions
of cinematic gems like Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, etc. etc. Day!).
Though come to think of it, I didn't actually cry at Jupiter Ascending, mostly
because every time emotions threatened to spiral out of control, the Wachowskis
killed the mood with another visually impressive but dull/repetitive Rescue the
Damsel action sequence. Snore. What can I saw? Regularly spaced action sequences
are an emotional boner killer.
The only question remaining to you, dear reader, is this: is
Jupiter Ascending "worth" watching? The answer is a qualified
"Not quite, unless you're on a plane, in which case, totally." And
you can take that to the bank!
The Math:
Objective assessment: 5/10
Bonuses: +1 for creating something new, +1 for Sean Bean
(and even Channing Tatum! Who knew?) being awesome
Penalties: -1 for the Plane Effect, -1 for choking the life
out of Mila Kunis's performance, -1 for periodically jabbing the viewer with
improbable rescue sequences every fifteen minutes or so
Nerd coefficient: 4/10 "Not very good"*
*Note that if on a plane, the score will rise to 5/10,
"Equal Parts Good and Bad!"
[Think I'm being mean to the poor widdle Wachowskis? Not at
all; a 4/10 is a perfectly respectable score, as you can see here.]
Zhaoyun has been crying at movies on planes since forever,
and writing about it and other stuff here at Nerds of a Feather since 2013.
