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Movies: Jupiter Ascending

Jupiter Ascending is a bit of an older film compared to those that I've reviewed so far, but on the Nimble Entertainment Review Depot, anything goes.  I don't want to limit myself by just covering the latest releases, so here we are.  I've always thought that this film looked pretty cool from the trailers and the little bits and pieces of it that I have seen over the years, but terrible reviews both from the critics and the general public have put me off from seeing it.  At the weekend I picked up a handful of cheap Blu Ray's, and this was amongst them.  Not expecting much at all, I sat down to watch the film last night, and I ended up really enjoying myself.

First of all, Jupiter Ascending looks fantastic in multiple ways - the design of the world, the special effects work, the choreography of the action sequences, and the attractive main leads. This film really pops in HD, though I have just got the regular Blu Ray version.  Out of interest I did check and see if there was a 4K UHD version available, and there is.  That one can be yours for about a tenner if your interest.  This standard Blu Ray cost me £1.50 for a second hand copy, which is pretty decent.

Good looks isn't enough to carry a film though, it has to have something else going for it as well.  In my opinion Jupiter Ascending is just a fun, action packed science fiction romp from start to finish.  It is campy, and daft, and convoluted, but that just adds to the fun, rather than diminish it. I would compare it to something like Flash Gordon.  Maybe the Wachowski's were aiming for something high brow and serious when they made this film, but if there were, that's not what they ended up with. Somehow I doubt that was their intention though.

The basic idea is that Jupiter, played by Mila Kunis, is the reincarnation of someone from royal lineage.  That someone just happens to be from an alien race who seeded the Earth with human life many millenia ago, for the purpose of turning the humans into goo later on.  This goo lets the aliens rejuvenate themselves when their bodies start to age, essentially giving them eternal life.  The three heirs of the Abraxas family are now looking for Jupiter, each for their own reason. One of the three siblings sends a hunter by the name of Cain Wise, played by Channing Tatum) to capture Jupiter and bring her to them.

Regardless of some of the really strange lines they were asked to say, I do think all of the actors involved turned in a solid performance.  Sean Bean is reliable as ever as the half bee man who helps Channing Tatum's half wolf protect Mila Kunis from danger, and Eddie Redmayne is really creepy as the main villain of the film.  Other actors who have appeared in the Wachowski's Sense 8 Netflix series, such as Tuppence Middleton and Doona Bae, also help fill out the cast.

Some of the harsh criticism thrown at Jupiter Ascending includes the following:
"Relentlessly meandering and incomprehensible, Jupiter Ascending is an over-extended costume party thrown within the confines of the cartoonish cosmos." - from Frank Ochieng, SF Crowsnest. While the movie does contain a fare few twists and turns to keep you on your toes, I never once found it to be incomprehensible.  Or over-extended for that matter.  If you don't include the end credits, then the film lasts for just over two hours, which is about right in my opinion.

Jupiter Ascending deserves to stand proudly next to other cheesy sci fi classics, such as Barbarella, Flash Gordon, Buckaroo Banzai, The Fifth Element, Speed Racer, and Valerian.  Maybe you hated it.  There's a pretty good chance you did, by the look of it.  But I really enjoyed it, and I some part of me thinks that maybe, just maybe, it will become considered as a cult classic at some point in the future.

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