Post by Harkovast on Sept 26, 2016 19:23:47 GMT
Jupiter Ascending.
So a while ago the Wachowski brothers made a film where humans are being secretly farmed by unseen high tech overlords.
Fortunately there is a chosen one who has been born that can save us and over throw our oppressors.
And few years before they did all that in Jupiter Ascending, they also did The Matrix.
Okay, to be fair, there was one thing I did get wrong in that description.
The Wachowskis aren't brothers anymore.
Andrew and Laurence are now Lilly and Lana.
And good for them, I say!
Unfortunately, while they might have got their wish regarding their gender identity, their quest to make a film after The Matrix that isn't total balls remains sadly unfulfilled. You can't do a film-making-talent-reassignment operation...if you could I would pay for it for these two myself!
These slow motion loving siblings have gone from visionary geniuses... to the masters of burning money on screen and unfortunately Jupiter Ascending may well represent the last time anyone lets them make a big budget movie.
Calling this movie bad doesn't really do it justice.
It is frankly baffling.
It's like a mass of random ideas and concepts thrown together in a blender.
To try to sum up the type of film you are getting....well its a Cinderella story, but in space, and kind of a young adult thing, sort of a twilight thing, kind of a space opera....It's fucking strange basically!
To try to give a brief summary...
Jupiter lives with her Russian family cleaning toilets in America, when she is found by a half wolf, half albino bounty hunter called Caine, who wants to rejoin the Legion (the space army) who kicked him out and took away his wings. Yes he had wings. Now he just has funny pointy ears and a dodgy goatee beard.
He wants to protect her from space bounty hunters and alien greys who want to kill her or sometimes capture her.
This is because she's the genetic reincarnation of the queen of the earth, whose kids have a galactic business harvesting humans on planets to make a youth serum.
And if you think that's confusing, I probably shouldn't even mention that Sean Bean shows up another former soldier who is half bee.
Since Star Wars Episode 1 its fashionable to bash films that have too much "space politics". Honestly, I think this is unfair.
Maybe I am just a sad weirdo who draws talking animals having magical adventures (I am assuming you are all shaking your heads and muttering to yourselves about how cool I am in response to that) but I kinda like world building and the strange ways things work in an alien society.
But even for me, this film is too much.
The things we are asked to accept are so weird and laughable and over complicated that it becomes impossible to take anything seriously.
Even I, the kind of nerd who should eat this shit up, was starting to lose track of what was going on.
When one of the evil siblings ....in the film! Not the Wachowskis! Though I admit they've committed many cinematic crimes by this point!
Anyway, one of the evil siblings says he wants to marry Jupiter (who is a genetic copy of his mother, but that's okay in space apparently), to out manoeuvre his two other siblings so he can take over the earth. I've watched the film twice to prepare for this review and I still find myself going "wait...which sibling is which?" and "wait...who owns the earth now?"
If even a nerd like me is starting to get lost in all your sci fi mumbo jumbo, how are the young teenage girls this movie is aimed at going to stand any chance with it?
This film has the sense of people who used to be cutting edge trying to play catch up and failing (probably because that is exactly what it is, obviously.)
The film is trying to be a story for teenage girls, featuring the half wolf hunk who keeps taking his shirt off, but this seems totally at odds with other elements.
While teenagers are getting their hormones in a tizzy over a dreamy stud, do they want to have to understand complex political plotting and business schemes?
The world itself seems inconsistent and badly thought out.
The aliens are so advanced that after levelling half the city, they rebuild it over night and blank everyone's memories so we don't know it happened.
If they can do all that...why are they do bad at shooting the wolf guy with their ray guns? They blaze away but don't seem to hit anything, so is their technology god-like or crappy?
There is a strange and totally out of place sequence where the characters have to go through loads of bureaucracy, going between offices for different forms and paper work.
Why do aliens who can rebuild cities over night need you to walk around filing paperwork?
This all feels rather like a tribute to the film Brazil, and this is confirmed by a cameo from Terry Gilliam. I am sure the teenage girls this film is aimed at really appreciated suddenly stopping the movie to do a nod to a dystopian British science fiction film from the 80's. At least I hope they did, because it pissed me the fuck off!
Are the siblings a royal family? They call Jupiter a queen, but then they seem to run a business and act like they are running an industry, so which is it? I have no real idea.
Most annoying of all is the films endless sexism.
Jupiter is totally useless and idiotic throughout the entire film.
She accomplishes literally nothing.
Caine rescues her from danger at least five times (I am not going to go back and count, I already watched it twice for you people!)
As I alluded at the start, this film recycles a load of plot concepts from The Matrix, including the main character being some kind of chosen one.
Neo got amazing powers within the Matrix that allowed him to free humanity and defeat the forces of evil.
Jupiter is only good at it falling off things while screaming and then being rescued by Caine on his flying rocket skates (he needs those since they took his wings away, obviously!)
At one point she has a load of bees swarm to defend her (because bees recognise royalty....at this point sure, why not?) and I honestly thought "oh she's finally going to do something useful." The bad guy just zaps the bees with his space gun and then captures her. She literally can't even be allowed take out one freaking mook! The film makes won't even allow her that small contribution.
Why couldn't being a genetic reincarnation come with special powers? Why didn't she get some rocket skates? All she does it get to wear a variety of different outfits. No really. She gets changed into different sets of cloths while unconscious so much that the movie even lamp shades it.
This kind of blunt sexism is insulting to women, but its also annoying when you are trying to watch the film.
Watching a useless, incompetent, helpless character is irritating. You want a protagonist to be proactive and accomplish things.
You could change Jupiter for a deed that says "You now own the earth". If could make the deed scream when you drop it off things and people catch it, you would have completely replaced her character.
I initially assumed this patent sexism was caused by unthinking film makers, but I've come to realise it was far more cynical.
This film is chasing the Twilight crowd, books and movies famous for their uninteresting, passive and useless main character.
But there is one big difference.
Twilight, and its fan fic adults only knock off Fifty Shades of Grey are porn.
They are just erotica for ladies trying to get off.
And there's nothing wrong with that, ladies want to read some fantasies I say go for it, more power to them.
The point is, you can't hold up media that is designed just to titillate to the standards of actual, real films.
Complaining that Twilight is sexist or doesn't make sense is like complaining that Ron Jeremy isn't behaving like a real plumber.
Jupiter Ascending isn't just erotica, it is trying to tell you a real story as an actual sci-fi film and so the sexism of having their heroine be utterly useless is embarrassing and drags down the whole movie.
Jupiter is not only useless, she is also dumb as a brick.
Early on it is declared that she is very smart, but she never demonstrates this even one time during the entire movie. When she is told that aliens put humans on earth in order to harvest them to make their youth Serum....she is then shocked later to hear that this means killing the humans.
I can't even think of what else Jupiter might have thought was going on. What the hell else would they be doing? I mean I seriously can't think of another answer to what that means. Did she think they were going to harvest all our toe nail clippings?
Her stupidity is made to seem worse because the film uses strange story telling where the audience it told he answer to the mysteries right away.
One of the first things we learn is that there are aliens destroying planets populations and they are hunting for Jupiter.
We see all the bounty hunters, alien greys and stuff right away after and have it all explained in boring detail.
Hearing the plot then being explained to Jupiter is boring (we already know it) and adds to the sense that she is an idiot because she's the only one in the film or audience who can't figure this shit out!
The Wachowskis are washed up. They had ideas for one good film and keep trying to recapture that magic with ever decreasing returns.
It even steals ideas from the shit Matrix sequels!
Turns out stories of vampires and werewolves are NOT caused by rogue programs, as Matrix Reloaded taught us.
Turns out its immortal alien businessmen/royalty that we keep mistaking for the super natural.
I guess the Wachoskis just think thats a really cool concept for some reason.
Now I loved the Matrix, so maybe I should be more forgiving and give the film makers a break.
But then they implied the aliens guns are the cause of crop circles.
Now I'm mad.
So to punish them I am just going to finish with some actual quotes from the movie.
Caine "Genetically I have more in common with a dog than you."
Jupiter "I love dogs, I've always loved dogs."
Dragon guy "You hurt me, now I'm going to make you regret it."
Sean Bean "Bee's don't lie."
But the best line, delivered in a performance so bad it feels like the actor is trying to ruin the movie, is so amazing I have to play it for you to understand.
I CREATE REVIEWS....and I destroy them.
So a while ago the Wachowski brothers made a film where humans are being secretly farmed by unseen high tech overlords.
Fortunately there is a chosen one who has been born that can save us and over throw our oppressors.
And few years before they did all that in Jupiter Ascending, they also did The Matrix.
Okay, to be fair, there was one thing I did get wrong in that description.
The Wachowskis aren't brothers anymore.
Andrew and Laurence are now Lilly and Lana.
And good for them, I say!
Unfortunately, while they might have got their wish regarding their gender identity, their quest to make a film after The Matrix that isn't total balls remains sadly unfulfilled. You can't do a film-making-talent-reassignment operation...if you could I would pay for it for these two myself!
These slow motion loving siblings have gone from visionary geniuses... to the masters of burning money on screen and unfortunately Jupiter Ascending may well represent the last time anyone lets them make a big budget movie.
Calling this movie bad doesn't really do it justice.
It is frankly baffling.
It's like a mass of random ideas and concepts thrown together in a blender.
To try to sum up the type of film you are getting....well its a Cinderella story, but in space, and kind of a young adult thing, sort of a twilight thing, kind of a space opera....It's fucking strange basically!
To try to give a brief summary...
Jupiter lives with her Russian family cleaning toilets in America, when she is found by a half wolf, half albino bounty hunter called Caine, who wants to rejoin the Legion (the space army) who kicked him out and took away his wings. Yes he had wings. Now he just has funny pointy ears and a dodgy goatee beard.
He wants to protect her from space bounty hunters and alien greys who want to kill her or sometimes capture her.
This is because she's the genetic reincarnation of the queen of the earth, whose kids have a galactic business harvesting humans on planets to make a youth serum.
And if you think that's confusing, I probably shouldn't even mention that Sean Bean shows up another former soldier who is half bee.
Since Star Wars Episode 1 its fashionable to bash films that have too much "space politics". Honestly, I think this is unfair.
Maybe I am just a sad weirdo who draws talking animals having magical adventures (I am assuming you are all shaking your heads and muttering to yourselves about how cool I am in response to that) but I kinda like world building and the strange ways things work in an alien society.
But even for me, this film is too much.
The things we are asked to accept are so weird and laughable and over complicated that it becomes impossible to take anything seriously.
Even I, the kind of nerd who should eat this shit up, was starting to lose track of what was going on.
When one of the evil siblings ....in the film! Not the Wachowskis! Though I admit they've committed many cinematic crimes by this point!
Anyway, one of the evil siblings says he wants to marry Jupiter (who is a genetic copy of his mother, but that's okay in space apparently), to out manoeuvre his two other siblings so he can take over the earth. I've watched the film twice to prepare for this review and I still find myself going "wait...which sibling is which?" and "wait...who owns the earth now?"
If even a nerd like me is starting to get lost in all your sci fi mumbo jumbo, how are the young teenage girls this movie is aimed at going to stand any chance with it?
This film has the sense of people who used to be cutting edge trying to play catch up and failing (probably because that is exactly what it is, obviously.)
The film is trying to be a story for teenage girls, featuring the half wolf hunk who keeps taking his shirt off, but this seems totally at odds with other elements.
While teenagers are getting their hormones in a tizzy over a dreamy stud, do they want to have to understand complex political plotting and business schemes?
The world itself seems inconsistent and badly thought out.
The aliens are so advanced that after levelling half the city, they rebuild it over night and blank everyone's memories so we don't know it happened.
If they can do all that...why are they do bad at shooting the wolf guy with their ray guns? They blaze away but don't seem to hit anything, so is their technology god-like or crappy?
There is a strange and totally out of place sequence where the characters have to go through loads of bureaucracy, going between offices for different forms and paper work.
Why do aliens who can rebuild cities over night need you to walk around filing paperwork?
This all feels rather like a tribute to the film Brazil, and this is confirmed by a cameo from Terry Gilliam. I am sure the teenage girls this film is aimed at really appreciated suddenly stopping the movie to do a nod to a dystopian British science fiction film from the 80's. At least I hope they did, because it pissed me the fuck off!
Are the siblings a royal family? They call Jupiter a queen, but then they seem to run a business and act like they are running an industry, so which is it? I have no real idea.
Most annoying of all is the films endless sexism.
Jupiter is totally useless and idiotic throughout the entire film.
She accomplishes literally nothing.
Caine rescues her from danger at least five times (I am not going to go back and count, I already watched it twice for you people!)
As I alluded at the start, this film recycles a load of plot concepts from The Matrix, including the main character being some kind of chosen one.
Neo got amazing powers within the Matrix that allowed him to free humanity and defeat the forces of evil.
Jupiter is only good at it falling off things while screaming and then being rescued by Caine on his flying rocket skates (he needs those since they took his wings away, obviously!)
At one point she has a load of bees swarm to defend her (because bees recognise royalty....at this point sure, why not?) and I honestly thought "oh she's finally going to do something useful." The bad guy just zaps the bees with his space gun and then captures her. She literally can't even be allowed take out one freaking mook! The film makes won't even allow her that small contribution.
Why couldn't being a genetic reincarnation come with special powers? Why didn't she get some rocket skates? All she does it get to wear a variety of different outfits. No really. She gets changed into different sets of cloths while unconscious so much that the movie even lamp shades it.
This kind of blunt sexism is insulting to women, but its also annoying when you are trying to watch the film.
Watching a useless, incompetent, helpless character is irritating. You want a protagonist to be proactive and accomplish things.
You could change Jupiter for a deed that says "You now own the earth". If could make the deed scream when you drop it off things and people catch it, you would have completely replaced her character.
I initially assumed this patent sexism was caused by unthinking film makers, but I've come to realise it was far more cynical.
This film is chasing the Twilight crowd, books and movies famous for their uninteresting, passive and useless main character.
But there is one big difference.
Twilight, and its fan fic adults only knock off Fifty Shades of Grey are porn.
They are just erotica for ladies trying to get off.
And there's nothing wrong with that, ladies want to read some fantasies I say go for it, more power to them.
The point is, you can't hold up media that is designed just to titillate to the standards of actual, real films.
Complaining that Twilight is sexist or doesn't make sense is like complaining that Ron Jeremy isn't behaving like a real plumber.
Jupiter Ascending isn't just erotica, it is trying to tell you a real story as an actual sci-fi film and so the sexism of having their heroine be utterly useless is embarrassing and drags down the whole movie.
Jupiter is not only useless, she is also dumb as a brick.
Early on it is declared that she is very smart, but she never demonstrates this even one time during the entire movie. When she is told that aliens put humans on earth in order to harvest them to make their youth Serum....she is then shocked later to hear that this means killing the humans.
I can't even think of what else Jupiter might have thought was going on. What the hell else would they be doing? I mean I seriously can't think of another answer to what that means. Did she think they were going to harvest all our toe nail clippings?
Her stupidity is made to seem worse because the film uses strange story telling where the audience it told he answer to the mysteries right away.
One of the first things we learn is that there are aliens destroying planets populations and they are hunting for Jupiter.
We see all the bounty hunters, alien greys and stuff right away after and have it all explained in boring detail.
Hearing the plot then being explained to Jupiter is boring (we already know it) and adds to the sense that she is an idiot because she's the only one in the film or audience who can't figure this shit out!
The Wachowskis are washed up. They had ideas for one good film and keep trying to recapture that magic with ever decreasing returns.
It even steals ideas from the shit Matrix sequels!
Turns out stories of vampires and werewolves are NOT caused by rogue programs, as Matrix Reloaded taught us.
Turns out its immortal alien businessmen/royalty that we keep mistaking for the super natural.
I guess the Wachoskis just think thats a really cool concept for some reason.
Now I loved the Matrix, so maybe I should be more forgiving and give the film makers a break.
But then they implied the aliens guns are the cause of crop circles.
Now I'm mad.
So to punish them I am just going to finish with some actual quotes from the movie.
Caine "Genetically I have more in common with a dog than you."
Jupiter "I love dogs, I've always loved dogs."
Dragon guy "You hurt me, now I'm going to make you regret it."
Sean Bean "Bee's don't lie."
But the best line, delivered in a performance so bad it feels like the actor is trying to ruin the movie, is so amazing I have to play it for you to understand.
I CREATE REVIEWS....and I destroy them.