Gaseous Giant: A Movie Review

Written and directed by the Wachowski siblings who used to be the Wachowski brothers until one of them became a girl, Jupiter Ascending ascended onto the Multiplexes on Friday just as the planet Jupiter reaches its closest approximation to Earth. One is a gas giant; the other is just gaseous.  

The story – hard to find a plot amidst the explosions and special effects – centers around Jupiter Jones (don’t ask) a young toilet cleaner (please don’t ask) who lives in Chicago. “Jupe” as she refers to herself once, is played by Mila Kunis, an actress who shows some comic flair in a couple of scenes, but mostly is a big-eyed, homely girl in a pony tail who is called upon to scream, fall through space and dress in outlandish costumes (one of which has her wearing what looks like a New Age Christmas tree atop her head). That's when she isn’t hanging onto Channing Tatum while he skateboards through the air in a pair of anti-gravity boots which leave silver streaks as a wake. 

When Jupe signs up for big bucks to have her eggs harvested at a fertility clinic, little does she realize the doctors and nurses are really creatures who look like they escaped from the Independence Day space ship. Or that they aren't there to harvest her eggs but rather to rub her out.  

Before the ETs can do in our heroine, hero, Channing Tatum, shows up and wipes them out instead. Channing is a “splice” a human with human and wolf genes as evidenced by pointy, elf ears, and a third, unidentified species. Channing’s character once had wings, but was de-winged (by whom and why is not clear) because he once lost control of himself and tore out someone's throat. Spoiler: Channing gets his wings back at the end and he and Jupe (who inherited his gravity defying boots) go flying, skate-boarding across the Chicago skyline. No word on whether NSA picked them up. Or NASA for that matter. 

The usually excellent Eddie Redmayne is one of three nefarious sibling villains whose deceased mother, like a distaff King Lear, divided up her kingdom (the universe) between cachectic Eddie, his sneaky but handsome brother and their 14,000 year old sister. Mama was 90,000 years old when she died. She might have lived longer had she not been murdered. (Spoiler: Eddie did it). In the only significant and/or memorable line in the two hour film (it felt more like four), a character explains time is the only wealth worth having. It turns out these ageless miscreants achieve eternal life by harvesting fresh DNA from the planets they "mine". Earth is Eddie's and he is not about to give it up.

After saving Jupe from the malignant ET's, Channing takes her to his friend, Stinger, played by Sean Bean, whereupon Stinger's bees identify Jupe as royalty. It turns out bees are genetically capable of identifying royals which is why Jupe has never been stung. Whether this applies to all bees or just Stinger's bees is not clear.

After a few more attacks and explosions and a trip to Jupiter (the planet, not the character) on a space ship that looks like a metal wasp, the totally confused audience learns that Jupiter (the character) is really Eddie Redmayne's mother. Yep, she's a "Recurrent" which means Mommy Dearest has been reincarnated, rejuvenated and now that she's back, Earth and the rest of the universe belongs to her again which leaves her three bratty kids out of luck.

Most of the dialogue, like the film itself, is silly and superficial, but like all good Hollywood propagandists, the Wachowskis manage to slip in The Liberal Tell. For those who don’t know what The Liberal Tell is, it is a phrase coined by John Nolte who points out that Hollywood somehow manages to slip leftist propaganda (The Liberal Tell) into most movies: Capitalism is bad, socialism is good, business is corrupt--as Yul Brynner's King would say "et cetera, et cetera, et cetera". Naturally, the nefarious trio in "Jupiter Ascending" are capitalists, who, unlike Hollywood's limousine liberals, are out only for a profit.