I’ve come to expect a lot from the Wachowski’s. By a lot I mean I’ve come to expect a big budget visual masterpiece that gets away from itself too quickly and lands firmly it the realm of stuff that could’ve been a masterwork but wound up trying to be too much and being very little of substance in the process. In terms of Jupiter Ascending, I was not disappointed. The film promises a world of a billion planets and delivers a shallow bit of storytelling that hints at royal intrigue and a tremendous multi-world history. Unfortunately, it only delivers on tremendous fast-moving actions scenes and a trademark Wachowski score—Just as expected.
Jupiter Ascending is a huge concept piece. In this 2 hour ride the Wachowskis attempt much of what they did in the original Matrix, which is to form a unified theory that explains everything from religion, to myth, to the dinosaur extinction, to little grey men as the result of a singular source: The fact that the Earth is a nascent civilization profoundly at the will of other more advanced civilizations. What I love is that the Earth itself is important in more of a financial sense than the Douglas Adams way, but lends itself to the same possible fate.
I can’t talk about the title character without revealing the central (and spiritually bereft yet scientifically compelling) conceit of the film. I can say that the other two main characters bring rote acting to the screen here, playing typical roles and acting to the maximum potential of those roles. The fault is not their own but that of the Wachowskis who, used to dealing with the likes of Keanu Reaves, create very limiting character roles for the actors they select.
To be honest, I enjoyed the film despite the fact that it is a mess. I was looking for an escape and the film brought me that in spades. For two hours I was immersed in the cool, visually stunning, and completely silly realm that Andy and Lana carved out of their imaginations.