Outer space! A boring love story! And a villain who only whispers or yells...
I'm going to be brutally honest here, I'm not a big fan of the Wachowski's. But, when I saw the trailer of Jupiter Ascending over a year ago I wanted to see it so badly. Sci-fi hasn't had the strongest presence lately in film, and this was just eye candy that I ate up. A guy who has basically hover boots, alien races fighting each other, and a war brimming on the horizon? Oh yeah, sign me up. And then I saw the film...
I will give the movie this: the ideas and world that it has is incredible!I love the civilizations that live there, I love the weird yet simple technology that was made. Those lizard people are amazing, and I loved the unique way that they growled while talking. The gravity boots were a joy to watch in action, used very interestingly. The military characters were spliced with animal DNA (Bees, Wolves) to enhance their capabilities. A magical (tech liquid but magical makes it sound awesome) liquid that reminds me of the Lazarus Pit. This movie is exactly the spectacle for the eyes. The CGI are done really well, never once did I think that they dipped in quality when watching it (probably explains why they changed the release date from 2014 to 2015). However, that was mostly the end of what I enjoyed.
The biggest part of the film that stuck out like a sore thumb was the majority of the acting. With the exception of Channing Tatum and Sean Bean, the acting was either mediocre or painful. There were too many times that I had to get my mind out of the movie to question if these actors were even trying. A few seemed just to do whatever, as if it were an easy paycheck. Don't even get me started on the main villain of the movie, does he ever express any emotions on his face or voice?? Mila Kunis was okay I guess, her character had a lot of potential to really change from going through this life changing experience, but she either goes "ooooh something new" or is screaming from being in trouble....
That doesn't mean that there was no good acting. I've been a huge fan of Channing Tatum in recent years and think that he's getting better with each role. He was great in this and one of the main reasons I wanted to continue to watch, I can't think of a way that he could have escalated his performance to improve on his character. The same goes for Sean Bean, I enjoyed every second that he was onscreen, the dynamic between these two characters were great as well. I'd love to see a movie just on those two, maybe when Tatum's character was just beginning in the military squad.
And now I have to talk about what really brought the film down: The Story. There are so many great avenues to travel down in this amazing world that the Wachowski's have created, but I was most disappointing that they did the generic lone wolf, poor girl falls in love and becomes not so poor by the end. Even then, they did it in such an uninteresting way that I feel like that this whole new universe was wasted. I saw glimmers of intellectual mind games, but they were portrayed so childishly that I was surprised how gullible Mila Kunis' character is. The story was not only generic, but thin. This movie is just eye candy; the action sequences and special effects were overpowering (although I didn't care much for all the slo-mo used in the action). Another thing I did not care for was the comedy. The comedy in Jupiter Ascending is so "look at this and laugh" you can easily see what parts of the film were filmed only to get audiences to laugh and you know what? No one in my theater laughed at the scenes that were filmed just for the laughs. So with a heavy heart, I left the theater as the credits began to roll.
While this film did look good on the surface, there was just so many aspects that started to fall apart when watching it that I was happy it ended. I really wanted to like this movie, especially since I've been excited for this for over a year, but sadly it did not utilize its strengths and ended up being a generic action/comedy/too bloated for itself type of movie.
C
I'm going to be brutally honest here, I'm not a big fan of the Wachowski's. But, when I saw the trailer of Jupiter Ascending over a year ago I wanted to see it so badly. Sci-fi hasn't had the strongest presence lately in film, and this was just eye candy that I ate up. A guy who has basically hover boots, alien races fighting each other, and a war brimming on the horizon? Oh yeah, sign me up. And then I saw the film...
I will give the movie this: the ideas and world that it has is incredible!I love the civilizations that live there, I love the weird yet simple technology that was made. Those lizard people are amazing, and I loved the unique way that they growled while talking. The gravity boots were a joy to watch in action, used very interestingly. The military characters were spliced with animal DNA (Bees, Wolves) to enhance their capabilities. A magical (tech liquid but magical makes it sound awesome) liquid that reminds me of the Lazarus Pit. This movie is exactly the spectacle for the eyes. The CGI are done really well, never once did I think that they dipped in quality when watching it (probably explains why they changed the release date from 2014 to 2015). However, that was mostly the end of what I enjoyed.
The biggest part of the film that stuck out like a sore thumb was the majority of the acting. With the exception of Channing Tatum and Sean Bean, the acting was either mediocre or painful. There were too many times that I had to get my mind out of the movie to question if these actors were even trying. A few seemed just to do whatever, as if it were an easy paycheck. Don't even get me started on the main villain of the movie, does he ever express any emotions on his face or voice?? Mila Kunis was okay I guess, her character had a lot of potential to really change from going through this life changing experience, but she either goes "ooooh something new" or is screaming from being in trouble....
That doesn't mean that there was no good acting. I've been a huge fan of Channing Tatum in recent years and think that he's getting better with each role. He was great in this and one of the main reasons I wanted to continue to watch, I can't think of a way that he could have escalated his performance to improve on his character. The same goes for Sean Bean, I enjoyed every second that he was onscreen, the dynamic between these two characters were great as well. I'd love to see a movie just on those two, maybe when Tatum's character was just beginning in the military squad.
And now I have to talk about what really brought the film down: The Story. There are so many great avenues to travel down in this amazing world that the Wachowski's have created, but I was most disappointing that they did the generic lone wolf, poor girl falls in love and becomes not so poor by the end. Even then, they did it in such an uninteresting way that I feel like that this whole new universe was wasted. I saw glimmers of intellectual mind games, but they were portrayed so childishly that I was surprised how gullible Mila Kunis' character is. The story was not only generic, but thin. This movie is just eye candy; the action sequences and special effects were overpowering (although I didn't care much for all the slo-mo used in the action). Another thing I did not care for was the comedy. The comedy in Jupiter Ascending is so "look at this and laugh" you can easily see what parts of the film were filmed only to get audiences to laugh and you know what? No one in my theater laughed at the scenes that were filmed just for the laughs. So with a heavy heart, I left the theater as the credits began to roll.
While this film did look good on the surface, there was just so many aspects that started to fall apart when watching it that I was happy it ended. I really wanted to like this movie, especially since I've been excited for this for over a year, but sadly it did not utilize its strengths and ended up being a generic action/comedy/too bloated for itself type of movie.
C
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