5 Crazy Sci-Fi Movies To Watch After 'Jupiter Ascending'

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.

'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.

'Cloud Atlas' Movie Review

Everything about “Cloud Atlas”—the latest film from “The Matrix” helmers the Wachowskis and “Run Lola Run” director Tom Tykwer—is big. The film has a big cast—both in name and number—big ideas, big scope, big run time (172 minutes), and, for the most part, big payoff. And the biggest thing of all is the film’s ambition. Boy howdy do the filmmakers set out to accomplish a great many things in adapting David Mitchell’s best-selling novel. And the film features multiple references to “Soylent Green”, which is one surefire way to gain my favor.