'Jupiter Ascending' Movie Review: The Wachowskis' Latest Is Big, Beautiful, And Bland

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.

'Ted' Movie Review

Seth MacFarlane’s foul-mouthed buddy comedy “Ted” is surprising. Not because of the story—there is nothing at all unusual there—but because it’s actually pretty funny. It isn’t brilliant, or game changing, or anything like that, but it’s amusing enough. I’m one of the legions who have long since abandoned MacFarlane’s most well known product, “Family Guy”. The “do something enough times it automatically becomes funny” has run its course, and you can only watch an extended fist fight between Peter Griffin and a giant chicken so many times before you’ve had enough. While the story of “Ted” is painfully bland and obvious—you know exactly what is coming every step of the way—MacFarlane avoids some the pitfalls “Family Guy” is prone to.