They tried to sell this monstrosity as some grand space opera, a sci-fi epic for the ages. The previews showed a woman flying around with rocket boots, some guy with pointy ears growling, and a whole lot of shiny spaceships blowing up. They promised us the moon, and delivered… well, something that smelled like it came from the dark side of it.

You’d think with all the money they threw at this thing, they could have hired someone who knew how to write a coherent story. Instead, we got this muddled mess of intergalactic royalty, bee people, and Eddie Redmayne whispering like he’s ordering soup at a fancy restaurant. They tried to cram so much into two hours that it felt like they were throwing a space-themed garage sale, and everything was priced to move, even the plot.

Review by Ben Dover

Holy mackerel, Jupiter Ascending isn’t just bad – it’s “make you question the existence of cinema” bad. The Wachowskis, apparently not content with how they tanked The Matrix sequels, decided to shoot for the stars and landed somewhere between a dumpster fire and a train wreck.

This 2015 space opera follows Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis), a toilet-scrubbing nobody who discovers she’s actually space royalty because… genetics? Reincarnation? Something about bees recognizing her? Who cares! Certainly not the script. I swear, the only thing she had to do was look confused and get dragged around and rescued by Caine Wise (Channing Tatum), a half-wolf, half-human soldier with anti-gravity roller skates and all the personality of a space rock.

Eddie Redmayne plays the villain, Balem Abrasax, and sweet mercy, his performance is what you’d get if you told an alien who’d never seen humans before to act like someone with laryngitis trying to win an Oscar. He whispers dramatically, then SHOUTS RANDOMLY, then whispers again. It’s like watching Hamlet performed by a malfunctioning vacuum cleaner.

The plot? Something about harvesting planets and human essence for immortality juice. Yes, you read that right. The entire Earth is basically a giant farm for space capitalism. It’s like The Matrix with none of the intelligence and all of the pretension. There’s a bureaucratic sequence in the middle that makes standing in line at the DMV seem like an action sequence from Die Hard.

The visuals are admittedly impressive, in the way that a really expensive car crash is impressive. Ships that look like dragon flies! Cities floating in Jupiter’s clouds! Genetic splices of humans and animals that make your childhood nightmares seem pleasant! Lots of shiny spaceships, shiny explosions, and shiny costumes. They clearly spent a fortune on the CGI, but it’s like putting lipstick on a pig. It’s still a pig. All this gorgeous CGI and not a single coherent thought to back it up.

At one point, Jupiter falls in love with Caine, who is part dog. I’ve seen more chemistry between baking soda and vinegar. Their romance has all the passion of two mannequins being pushed together by a bored department store employee.

The music? Forgettable. Just some generic orchestral stuff that sounded like it was ripped from a video game. Nothing memorable.

The whole thing felt like a fever dream, a bad one. It’s like they took every sci-fi trope ever invented, threw them into a blender, and hit “frappe.” The result? A sticky, confusing mess. I wouldn’t recommend this movie to my worst enemy, and I have a lot of enemies.

Rating: 1 out of 5 Toilet Scrubbers: I’d rather clean toilets than watch this again.
One star for the visual effects team, who clearly worked overtime to polish this turd. Jupiter Ascending is what happens when unlimited budget meets unlimited ambition meets extremely limited storytelling ability. It’s so bad it loops back around to being almost entertaining, like watching your drunk uncle try to explain quantum physics at Thanksgiving dinner.

ABOUT THE CRITIC

BEN DOVER has been inflicting his opinions on unsuspecting moviegoers since Carter was president. Once described by his ex-wife as “a man who never met a movie he couldn’t hate,” Dover maintains a special collection of what he calls “cinematic atrocities,” with Jupiter Ascending holding a place of honor between Battlefield Earth and The Room. He reportedly walked out of the Jupiter Ascending screening twice – once to “make sure my car hadn’t been towed, because that would have been more enjoyable” and again to “check if the theater had any alcohol stronger than beer.” Dover claims that during the film’s climactic space battle, he briefly considered a career change to lion taming, reasoning that “being mauled would be less painful.” His doctor has advised him against watching the film again, citing concerns about “dangerously elevated blood pressure and the risk of spontaneous combustion from rage.”

Synopsis and Plot Breakdown

Jupiter Jones is a down-on-her-luck toilet scrubber in Chicago. Unbeknownst to her, she’s actually the genetic reincarnation of the matriarch of the Abrasax dynasty, an alien royal family that harvests planets for their youth serum. Balem Abrasax, one of the three heirs, wants to kill her because her existence threatens his claim to Earth, a planet he intends to harvest.

Caine Wise, a genetically engineered ex-soldier, is sent to protect Jupiter. He whisks her away to space, where she learns about her royal lineage and the Abrasax family’s dark secrets. She’s then dragged around space to different planets, while Balem tries to kill her. She then has to navigate the Abrasax family’s political infighting, including Balem’s siblings, Titus and Kalique. There are also bee people, which I still don’t understand. She eventually ends up fighting Balem, and wins, saving the Earth. In the end, she’s back to cleaning toilets, but now she has a boyfriend with rocket boots.

Famous Quotes:

1. “Bees don’t lie.”
2. “I create life, and I harvest life.”
3. “Time is the single most precious commodity.”
4. “You are royalty.”
5. “I have more in common with the dirt under my fingernails than with you.”

Notes From The Movie:

1. The Abrasax family’s obsession with youth is a metaphor for the dangers of unchecked power and greed.
2. The movie’s production was notoriously troubled, with multiple delays and budget overruns.
3. The film’s visual effects were nominated for an Academy Award, despite the film’s critical panning.
4. Channing Tatum’s character, Caine Wise, was originally supposed to have wings, but they were scrapped during production., then…
5. The movie’s box office performance was considered a major flop.

Photos:

Trailer:

Reviewer Notes:

Why does this movie have the Green Goblin fighting?

So we have a Liken (underworld), blanking memories (men in black), Star Wars style space councils, a little game of thrones, bee people, Oedipus complexes, and whatever else they could throw into one incoherent plot.

You can always tell a Wachowski film because its like a thousand different really cool things on their own, thrown together into one incoherent mess.