According to this film a Leo is destined to do great things. What they actually mean is you need saving all the time.

I had very high hopes for this movie, but had to adjust them after all the bad reviews and low rating it received. After all it was not as bad as they made it out to be, but definitely not the masterpiece I was hoping for.


Story:
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To start of with the movie's biggest flaw; The story is as random as it can get. Not only did they fail to set up a good premise (Cinderella in space) but even the arcs have as little connection as possible.
We have a leading cast consisting of a 'renegade' soldier and a damsel in distress that doesn't seem to be able to love anyone until she literally gets swept of her feet by the prince in shining boots. Of course they need an enemy, so the villain is a selfish royalty with a batman-voice that uses the whole universe for its own gain and profit. Actually, he isn't the only one. Everyone else in the universe who can does. And those who cannot, accept it as a fact of life. So why is he a villain again? Oh right, he is the one who is currently threatening earth...
And then there are the sister and brother of the villain who get entangled in the story, although they have no influence on the outcome of the story at all and only prolong it.

Jupiter (Mila Kunis) needs to protect her family and the earth all the while barely making any decisions by herself (besides wanting to go back home scrubbing a toilet.) Even when she does make a decision, it gets her into trouble. It's as if she wants to create a situation where her prince is coming to save her (from the altar and the worst marriage in history of spacetime and movie clichés.)
Through most of the movie she has no idea what is going on, and character development is thin as ice. The same goes for most the other characters.

Some comedic relieve is put in with an (extensive) joke about bureaucrats with our 'heroes' just standing by while some robot goes from one department to another. As well as a spaceship leaving a crop circle in a not so subtle way while lifting off. Really, who wants to see those things?
Also: Why was Channing Tatum the only guy with a shield (or flying boots) in the whole universe? And why does he run through a cornfield, while he can much easier fly over it (and how did he survive the journey through space right after that when he was outside the ship?)
Well, at least they used a decent excuse for a massive destruction of an earth-bound city in a movie.


Casting:
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The cast was a variable success. This might be the first flick in which Sean Bean doesn't get killed off prematurely :P
Most of the actors did what they could with what they got and Eddie Redmayne (playing the villain) probably got the best out of it. He created a pretty convincing bad guy with the moods of royal spoiled kid.
Mila Kunis did a good job on making 'Cinderella' likable and convincing. it is nice to see her do a Science Fiction flick, and I would love to see her do more in the future (hopefully with a more profound role.)
The brother Titus and sister Kalique (Douglas Booth and Tuppence Middleton resp.) were already pretty irrelevant for the story, but managed to erase themself from memory even more easily by overacting their roles. So they ended up more as eye-candy than anything else.

I am saving Channing Tatum (Cain 'Prince flying boots' Wise) for last. As an action hero he did not disappoint. He also handled the more romantic scenes with the right subtlety even though he and Kunis did not seem to really feel each other.
The only point that was constantly in my mind was: "Why didn't they get Justin Timberlake for his part?" He has proven himself to be a good actor a long time a go (also in Sci-Fi with 'In Time') and even starred with Mila Kunis in 'Friends with benefits' where they showed to have a great chemistry together. It is not that Tatum did a bad job, but Timberlake might have done a better job at getting that connection with Kunis, which frankly was underwhelming.


Visuals:
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This is where the movie gets its most points for. It is a space opera after all and the creators of 'The Matrixx' and 'Cloud Atlas' have a niche with trying to do unique things with the action and mood of a movie.
Some extra-slow bullet time is thrown in and (very) fast action with ships spinning around each other which was a real enjoyment.
Somehow the action scenes (like the one named before) are a bit too fast paced though. It goes so fast and gets so chaotic from time to time that it is really hard to follow what is going on and/or to enjoy it thoroughly.

As a space opera it did its job with throwing in a lot of extraterrestrial beings (including the famous area51 big heads) and nice designed spaceships. The make-up and CGI of some of the recurring creatures were extremely detailed and so great to look at it didn't feel fake at all. In comparison; LOTR's Gollem looks like a ship of the 70s game 'Space Invaders' next to them.
The visuals of Jupiter, Earth and other planets are astonishing (way better than 'Interstellar' for example) and so are the clouds on Jupiter itself and views of the different cities.
A lot of the long shots of cities and spaceships are a bit cut short and just too distant though, which was a shame since they could've used those moments more so the viewer could enjoy the view and take in the atmosphere. This made the movie feel less 'in your face' and majestic (remember the openings scene of 'Star Wars?)


Overall:
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With a bad plot, good visuals and an average cast 'Jupiter Ascending' makes for a nice looking movie that can be seriously fun to watch, but nothing as special as it promised to be. It has many flaws and downsides but in my opinion the critique and bad ratings are worse than the movie is set out to be. This is probably mostly because of the high expectations the movie had before release. It still is quite ridiculous though.

Let’s face it: The Matrix wasn’t that great. It had some cool ideas and special effects for the time, alright, but overall it was broken — and that was further proven by its very weak sequels. The Wachowskis started being regarded in very high esteem after said film, and Jupiter Ascending comes to show how wrong everyone was. Fine, they flirted with good cinema in 2012 with Cloud Atlas, but that was mainly because the source material was so grand. On the other hand, this year’s most expensive movie is nothing short of execrable: Channing Tatum is once again a major sore, and even the acceptable Mila Kunis gives a completely wooden performance, as does Oscar nominee Eddie Redmayne; the pacing is terrible, the action sequences are just too long and hard to follow; characters are introduced and vanish out of the blue; the main characters’ romance is waaaaay forced; and, guess what, the overall plot is exactly the same as in The Matrix — a “regular” human being is removed from its controlled universe to discover the bigger truth and eventually become the “chosen one”. It really will be difficult for anything to beat Jupiter Ascending as the worst movie of 2015.

Jupiter Ascending probably has one of the funniest scene so far in 2015 and that is the scene where a captain of this ship who's in a war battle and the captain says "Full speed a head", and it pans down to this elephant man like creature and it makes the funniest noise ever and of cause I laughed my head off.

The story is about Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis), who was born under a night sky, with signs predicting she was destined for great things. Now grown, Jupiter dreams of the stars but wakes up to the cold reality of a job cleaning other people's houses and an endless run of bad breaks. Only when Caine (Channing Tatum), a genetically engineered ex-military hunter, arrives on Earth to track her down does Jupiter begin to glimpse the fate that has been waiting for her all along-her genetic signature marks her as next in line for an extraordinary inheritance that could alter the balance of the cosmos.

I can't remember the time where the Wachowski made a good movie after the Matrix. Since then they made bad movie after bad movie and I don't know what to blame the writing or the directing, I think both since the Wachowski written and directed they movies and Jupiter Ascending is another one of they failures. Now I'm not the one who likes to bash some one who I know has great talent but I think some great talent forgot what made them so special in the first place.

For the positive: The first action scene in this movie I got to admit it was on the same level of spectacular has the Matrix. The hairs on my arm stood up, it was truly breathtaking and unique. The score by Michael G Keno was just fantastic to listen to and Channing Tatum and Sean Bean was okay in the film. For I split second I thought this movie was going to be good, but then I sawed the rest of it and it left a bad taste in my mouth.

Now for the bad and there's a lot: Mila Kunis in this movie pretty played the dumb damsel in distress that needs a man to save her ever 20 minutes and her character feels really miss cast and if they just cut her out of the movie it wouldn't make a difference, I mean really Wachowski? you could have done better than that I mean come on. Oh I almost forgot the dialogue in this movie was so bad it was Twilight dialogue bad.

The Visual Effect's as well looked pretty fake at times even if it's in the background or the CG creatures, it still looked fake.

Now we all know by now that Eddie Redmayne is a good actor. We know he can deliver dialogue and make it feel real and serious like a person, but in this I had no idea what on earth what he was doing. Over the top, chewing up scenery after scenery, laughable bad and a weird voice that's sounds like Richard Harris Dumbledore mix with Nicolas Cage if he was drunk and high. His performance was Razzie worthy bad and I don't blame him for this, I blame the writing and the directors because there they telling him what to do so I won't blame him for it, but come on Eddie I know your a nice guy in real life but did you even think "Wow this is pretty laughably bad I should ask the directors to change it".

Overall Jupiter Ascending is just a Sci-Fi smash together mess. The action scenes may have been the only enjoyable part of the movie, but even that couldn't save this uninspiring, bloated mess of a film.

It appears that I am going to disagree with a fair number of people when I say that I quite liked this movie. Sure, if you expect some deep story with a lot of moral cleverness in it you are going to be disappointed. This is an interesting story but one that hangs together by a fairly fine thread.

To me it is a decent enough story that is propelled by a decent enough action and absolutely wonderful scenery. Yes, I agree with everyone saying that it is a bit of a B-story. It has many issues and barely hangs together at times.

However, if you try to ignore that for a while and just try to view it as a piece of, fairly fast paced, visual entertainment, well then it hits the spot quite well. It is frequently beautiful to watch. The action sequences are not bad and the story is, if nothing else, certainly not the usual thirteen to a dozen B-movie repeats. The acting is, well, also generally of B-movie quality but it is not downright bad and, once I got in the right mindset for the movie, it did not disturb me.

On the whole I quite liked this movie but I guess you have to be a bit of sci-fi fan, with an emphasize on visuals, to do so.

Oh, by the way, people saying this was the worst movie ever are obviously talking BS or have not seen very many movies. This movie may not be to their liking but come one...worst movie ever?

> One liner, somewhat richer, but only a decent entertainer.

A sci-fantasy directed by the Wachowskis of 'The Matrix' fame. Theirs lowest point ever as the filmmakers, but still not that bad flick. The movie lacked in many areas, and one of those is failing to have at least one stunning fight/war scene. I know it was only the beginning and there will be a sequel, maybe ends as a trilogy, but the story was very weak for an intro movie.

Looks like one-liner, precisely to say kind of similar to 'The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy'. I mean in a thin idea, the whole story takes place. Something like a space expedition for a chosen one, hopping from a planet to planet, seeking answers and protection. The title character, Jupiter Jones, played by Mila Kunis, with the help of the Caine Wise (Channing Tatum) takes a risky venture when their lives were threatened. Finding who's behind and other truth brings the end of the narration, which runs for just over a 2 hour.

Performances were okay, but kind of doubt their inclusion in the project. Mostly the cast was the younger ones, maybe except, Sean Bean. Many of them are only the recently emerged stars. So it was a big responsibility in a big budget movie and they did it. But the movie should have had at least one senior artist. The graphics were somewhat rich, and again the absence of the quality scenes and stunts lets the movie fall.

6½/10