by Cookie N Screen
To say I was excited for Jupiter Ascending would be an understatement. Seemingly the only one frothing at the mouth to get her hands on The Wachoski Sibling’s latest space romp, it appeared that my titillation for the film was a lonely place to be. But sitting in a screening, the IMAX prepped to meet that level of enthusiasm, I was sure enough in for a ride – perhaps not the one I was expecting. Within minutes of the movie, the audience was overcome with clichés, stifled acting and a tragedy so cheesy that a man behind me groaned loudly. From that moment on, I knew that the film was going to be awful and strained.
And I was going to love every minute of it.
To celebrate the release of Jupiter Ascending, the story of a toiler cleaner who discovers that she is the reincarnation of a Queen and actually rules Earth, here’s the most bat-shit insane moments from the film. I promise you, you won’t be disappointed.
Honourable Mention: One of the extras has an inexplicable floppy elephant face for no reason whatsoever.
To say I was excited for Jupiter Ascending would be an understatement. Seemingly the only one frothing at the mouth to get her hands on The Wachoski Sibling’s latest space romp, it appeared that my titillation for the film was a lonely place to be. But sitting in a screening, the IMAX prepped to meet that level of enthusiasm, I was sure enough in for a ride – perhaps not the one I was expecting. Within minutes of the movie, the audience was overcome with clichés, stifled acting and a tragedy so cheesy that a man behind me groaned loudly. From that moment on, I knew that the film was going to be awful and strained.
And I was going to love every minute of it.
To celebrate the release of Jupiter Ascending, the story of a toiler cleaner who discovers that she is the reincarnation of a Queen and actually rules Earth, here’s the most bat-shit insane moments from the film. I promise you, you won’t be disappointed.
Honourable Mention: One of the extras has an inexplicable floppy elephant face for no reason whatsoever.
Monty Python's Boring Cameo
So Terry Gilliam is no stranger to creating over the top, mad-capped films. Brazil, Time Bandits and more all ache with the Monty Python stars flare with a special uniqueness. So his appearance in Jupiter Ascending could be perceived as a somewhat nod to his work with cult films and space adventures. Though in the context of the Wachowski’s space adventure, Giliam’s role is perplexing and heavily underused – especially as he appears as part of this DSV set-up, poking fun at the rigmarole of applications and queuing. Because in space, no one has figured out how to make the form filling enjoyable. Certainly, no one has made the process entertaining on the screen, as proven by the sheer tedium that not even Gilliam can save
And They Call It Puppy Love
Channing Tatum appears as the hero to the film. He’s a splice of dog and human – who happens to have wings that were clipped from him – named Caine (Caine-Nine, perhaps). He groans, gurns and tries desperately to save Queen of our world, Jupiter Jones. She is played by Mila Kunis who cannot handle grandiose films and her “talent” falters repeatedly to convey the drama, distress and determination needed for the role. Together they produce the most awkwardly strained pairing in cinematic history who have such little chemistry that it is pretty much like watching two of your cousins get it on. What’s worse is that you know the lines they are going to spout at one another, it’s like they’re following “Fantasy Script 101” which, if that book exists, would be a hell of a lot better than some of the drivel this film comes out with.
Jupiter Stupider
The whole story reads like a pretty terrible Doctor Who/Disney mashup used to sell generic characters so young girls can believe in magic. This all winds up being absurdly embellished and heavily underacted by the aforementioned bad performance by Kunis. The arc goes like this: Jupiter is a lowly maid working for her family, going around and cleaning toilets, which she hates. Her cousin has an idea to sell her eggs so he has cash to buy a television, console or whatever pathetic excuse he has to scrape ovum from Jupiter’s vajayjay. Then, with her legs up in stirrups, someone tries to kill her and Tatum’s dog hybrid saves her. This is swiftly followed by an alien sibling race attempting to murder her because she is the re-birth of their mother and they do so by seducing her because they are posh incestuous weirdos. So she darts over space, does some stupid things without thought, gets rescued a hell of a lot of times and then defeats them. Covering up that she is actually a Queen, she hides her identity by going back to scrubbing shit stains from porcelain. Reminder that she’s actually the motherfucking ruler of Earth.
But yet – she is humble enough to become best friends with Toilet Duck and Flash instead of taking her rightful place, despite super-mega-loathing her life beforehand. Yes. It makes zero sense.
But yet – she is humble enough to become best friends with Toilet Duck and Flash instead of taking her rightful place, despite super-mega-loathing her life beforehand. Yes. It makes zero sense.
"Oh God, not the BEES!
So Jupiter and a whole team of good guys need some sort of proof that she is the reincarnation of the ruler of Earth. When Caine takes Jupiter away from the missionaries sent to straight up murder her ass, he absconds her to a desolate house in the middle of nowhere where his old BFF Stinger resides. Of course, they’ve got more bad blood between them than a Taylor Swift video, so Stinger refuses to believe in Caine’s lavish story (although, he is played by Sean Bean so one can assume he didn’t want to get involved because of the looming death that comes to all of his characters). That is until the goddamn bees start swarming around Jupiter, and Stinger changes his mind with the reasoning that bees recognise royalty. See the symbolism; she’s the QUEEN BEE, his name is STINGER and she’s causing a bit of a BUZZ.
Wow.
Wow.
The Theory of Over-Acting
For anyone who watched Redmayne’s astute and poignant Oscar winning performance as Stephen Hawking in The Theory of Everything, you’d be right in thinking that clearly someone dropped acid in his drinks before shooting Jupiter Ascending. Sporting golden robes or next to nothing, the icy Balem Abrasax is such a confusing villain. Is he just a spoilt rich kid that dips his balls in the harvest mucus of humanity? Does he have a major boner for his mother? More importantly, why does he talk in a raspy voice as though a dozen bees swarmed in his throat (see, symbolism)? Eddie Redmayne is clearly lauding up his evil role as he roars bizarre line after bizarre line. Balem is done in such a hysterical way that you’ll wet yourself when he rips into his best Borat impression as he screams, “I CREATE LIFE.”
It’s truly a remarkably entertaining performance added to an over the top lavish film that makes it glorious in all its awfulness. I can predict that Jupiter Ascending will have the same cult following as The Room. Though, I’d advise against bringing bees into the screening.
It’s truly a remarkably entertaining performance added to an over the top lavish film that makes it glorious in all its awfulness. I can predict that Jupiter Ascending will have the same cult following as The Room. Though, I’d advise against bringing bees into the screening.
Jupiter Ascending is out on DVD and Blu-Ray now.
RSS Feed
