Jupiter Ascending

The latest movie from the Wachowski’s , Jupiter ascending has stunning visuals and impressive usage of visual effects. But when it comes to the story part, it follows the typical style of most of these emotional sci-fi drams. Coming from the makers of The Matrix, we do expect certain level of complexity and intellect in the content, but in the case of Jupiter ascending, there was no complexity and the intellect was reduced to certain counter dialogues.

Briefing the story without revealing much about the plot is a difficult task, but let me try. The earth is only a part of a bigger universe ruled by an alien royalty. Planets like earth were conceived by these people to harvest more time for their long living. The greedy children of the Abrasax royalty are in search of their mother’s new heir Jupiter, who lived in earth. The basic story is a fight between the three Abrasax and an ex military hunter (Caine Wise) who was in love with Jupiter.

The story line of the movie is very simple. They have tried to give it a complex feel by not revealing about the cause of this abduction act till the end. Well there is a huge set piece in the movie showing the fight between Caine and the Abrasax happening in the city of Chicago. The execution of this extended fight was visually appealing and the movie basically runs with the support of such well executed visuals. I don’t know what they were trying to say by making the administrative level actions in another planet look same as that of any corrupted government office in earth.

On screen Mila Kunis was okay playing the central protagonist. It is less of acting and more of a physical exercise for Channing Tatum in his slightly beasty look. Eddy Redmayne looks less challenged in this movie after having seen him in The Threory of Everything. He was nice in his soft spoken avatar. Sean Bean, Douglous Booth and rest of the cast also did their respective roles nicely.

The direction of the Wachowskis has that typical style. Space ships, turbulences, space oriented challenges and also the attitude of certain characters did remind me of the epic Matrix saga. As I said, the script lacks freshness and the basic theme being very thin takes the movie to a less captivating level. The cinematography was good and the visual effects were also of high quality. Nice background score supported the visual vastness.

Overall Jupiter Ascending is an average entertainer that has stunning visuals to keep you engaged. The rating for this latest movie from Wachowskis is 2.5/5. A 3D showpiece.