Oh, the Wachowskis: always high concept and wildly inconsistent. On the one hand they are responsible for "The Matrix" and the screenplay for "V For Vendetta", on the other hand they gave us "Speed Racer" and the "Matrix" sequels. Let's just say this one tends towards the latter films. As with the directors, the main and supporting cast of this movie is full of actors who have proven that they can do better including Mila Kunis, Sean Bean, Eddie Redmayne, Douglas Booth, Tuppance Middleton, Maria Doyle Kennedy, and Gugu Mbatha-Raw. Also, Channing Tatum is in this. And a cameo by Terry Gilliam. Now that I have given you plenty of ways to avoid this movie, let's try to make sense of this. For a moment there was genuine concern that we had found a movie that would take down Sarah, our plot decoder, but although this was clearly one of her toughest challenges, she endured and was able to give us the plot about halfway through the movie because this movie made the curious decision to have nonsense happen and explain it way after the fact.Jupiter Jones, Kunis, is a cleaning lady with consistently perfect eyeshadow who one day witnesses some aliens trying to harvest one of her employers. The same aliens try to harvest her during an egg donation but she is saved by a half dog/half human who used to have wings, Tatum. Long fight scenes ensue with shoddy explanation by Tatum and Sean Bean in which we find out that Tatum is some sort of former military tool who is to protect her and she's also a queen of something because bees don't sting her. If this doesn't make sense, it's okay. We find out the universe is actually divided up among three immortal siblings, raspy ham Balem, overly optimistic Kalique, and lazy Titus, who harvest people on their planets to remain forever young. Jupiter has the same genetic sequence as their dead mom, the queen, which means technically that she owns the universe because to them genes imply reincarnation. Kalique invites her over to hang out, Titus tries to marry her to get her fortune, and Balem blackmails her. Many, many, many fight scenes ensue as well as a romance between Jupiter and Dog Boy. Good guys win over Balem (I don't know about the other two; were they setting up for a potential sequel?), Jupiter becomes owner of the universe which essentially means nothing, and she hooks up with Dog Boy who got his wings back (ask Sarah why and what this means).
This movie is apparently a guilty pleasure for some people and its actually pretty easy to see how. It's got the space opera thing and the costumes and sets (that aren't egregiously bad CGI) are actually very impressive and interesting. The problem is, the plot is poorly delivered and poorly constructed and those fight scenes are just so long and so low-stakes you can't even slightly care. I almost think you could keep this same general verse and make a completely different movie in it that would actually be good but we only have this one and WE ONLY NEED THIS ONE, WACHOWSKIS.
BMN Quotes:
Kay: Whenever I look at Channing Tatum I am reminded that we are all just meat concealed in bags of flesh. We are all just sentient meat.
Adam: I used to play bass for Sentient Meat.
Keith: What did that guy [Eddie Redmayne] win an Oscar for?
Kay: For playing Stephen Hawking.
Keith: In "The Theory Of Everything"? But . . . he was really good in that!
Quotes:
"I have more in common with a dog than you."
"I love dogs."
"Is there any part of you that wants to bite me?"
And Eddie Redmayne's entire performance.
Spoon Rating: 4 [This is our new rating system for how unintentionally funny a movie is with 0 being not unintentionally funny at all and 10 being a film like "The Room."]
Adam's Grandma's Review: *silence*
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