The Wachowskis’ Jupiter Ascending finally
opens wide this weekend after being pushed back and delayed multiple times.
It’s a movie you’re either going to love or hate—it premiered at Sundance
recently and was brutalized—but either way, it’s a wingnut spectacle to behold.
It’s like a pulpy, B-grade sci-fi flick from a bygone era, only with a huge
budget and no restrictions, which is both an asset and a curse.
The Wachowski’s don’t make small, quiet films. They go big,
they go ambitious, and they desperately need a hit, like how a crack head needs
a hit. Their last two, Cloud Atlas and Speed
Racer, did not exactly light up the box office. Unfortunately, their
latest, Jupiter Ascending, is not likely to be that movie,
as there isn’t much that truly works. This is a mishmash of crazy ideas thrown
into a blender with a damsel-in-distress movie, full of what is best described
as heroic space rollerblading. What makes this so unusual for the Wachowskis is
how, despite fits of madness like what appears to be a race entirely comprised
of a flying lizard biker gang, utterly bland this movie is.
