JUPITER ASCENDING (D)

The Quick Fix: A vivid yet forgetfully unimaginative mess…

The Bottom Line: The Wachowski siblings deliver a brightly-colored, vividly convoluted and boldly uninteresting tale of deep space royalty stock market speculation, toilet scrubbing queens incarnate and dog-men do-gooders with jogger-motion jet boots.  Yes, all of that goofy sounding stuff is at play here plus a ton of ridiculous dialogue, jarringly lazy editing, a general lack of intrigue in story and three main stars (Tatum, Kunis and Redmayne) that all seem painfully unaware of the pseudo-absurdity that surrounds them…  Jupiter Ascending is the woodshed-born, ugly duckling spawn of an aggressively derivative Fifty Shades of Grey-like tryst between The Phantom Menace, John Carter, Dune, The Fifth Element, Flash Gordon and The Wizard of Oz.  …a movie that continually demands your attention and immediately punishes you for trying to give a damn.  Admittedly, some of this soulless sci-fi space opera storytelling may be energetically bonkers enough to work on hard core genre fans (or people who have never seen a sci-fi movie before…like, ever) – but my bet is most will find it a laughably goofy, politically hollow and thoroughly exhaustive exercise in numbing the butt and mind.  Overpowering and underwhelming – try passing out sometime on a fully-loaded, backed-by-the-city, 4^th of July fireworks barge with a lit cigarette dangling from your lips – your eventual awakening and chaotic confusion should roughly be the same experience you’ll have while watching this flick…

Starring: Channing Tatum, Mila Kunis, Eddie Redmayne and Sean Bean

Directed by: Andy and Lana Wachowski (The Matrix Trilogy, Bound and Cloud Atlas)

Rated: PG-13 (for some violence, sequences of sci-fi action, some suggestive content and partial nudity)

Running time: 125 minutes

Story: From the streets of Chicago to the far-flung galaxies whirling through space, "Jupiter Ascending" tells the story of Jupiter Jones, who was born under a night sky, with signs predicting she was destined for great things. Now grown, Jupiter dreams of the stars but wakes up to the cold reality of a job cleaning other people's houses and an endless run of bad breaks. Only when Caine, a genetically engineered ex-military hunter, arrives on Earth to track her down does Jupiter begin to glimpse the fate that has been waiting for her all along-her genetic signature marks her as next in line for an extraordinary inheritance that could alter the balance of the cosmos. (C) Warner Bros

Official site: www.jupiterascending.com