Yes, No, Maybe So: Jupiter Ascending
Tuesday, April 1, 2014 at 6:14PM 
For April Fools Day a Yes No Maybe So on a trailer promoting a movie that could well be a folly.
Though I am on record at having loathed Cloud Atlas I appreciate movies that operate from the outer edges of sanity. I'm always curious when the Wachowski Siblings make a movie despite a despairing qualitative free fall: their first was their best (Bound), their second their second best (The Matrix) but it's been a precipitous drop each and every time so at this rate they'll make the worst movie of all time soon. Will it be Jupiter Ascending?
I realized this trailer arrived a week ago but it's been busy chez moi. I made a wee bit of time today because... well, you'll have to see why in the Yes column after the jump.
YES
• Channing Tatum with Elf ears + Wet Eddie Redmayne = instant boner²
NO
• I don't understand one thing that is happening in any of those action clips and aint nobody got time for incoherent action sequences now that Captain America: Winter Soldier is about to arrive and seems to come from the Cameron school of well choreographed thoughtfully visualized battles in which you can often (if not always) follow what each character is doing even as they move at extraordinary athletic speed through extraordinary special effects and which is not dependent on disorienting editing for its thrills.
• This trailer gives the vibe that the movie is going to be quite a hodgepodge of 'yeah, let's put that onscreen, too!'
• Ugh, so Jupiter is some sort of queen, a one and only? Aint nobody got time for another Chosen One myth. That's all we ever get. I love Baby Jesus as much as anyone but it's like he ruined sci-fi/fantasy because everything is some sort of neo-christian salvation myth where only one person holds the destiny of all. Snoresville. Give me team work and multiple heroes any day over this ancient and tired trope.
• After Oz the Great and Powerful I fear all shots of Mila Kunis in gawdy costumes. She's one of those rare traditionally gorgeous actresses where low key costuming does more to accentuate her beauty. Everything else doesn't look right on her. Give me the simple tights and jackets of Black Swan any day.
MAYBE SO
• Bound was all kinds of amazing with the budget-free attributes of plotting and performance and editing and such and those filmmakers have to be somewhere in there buried in the CGI budgets they've been afforded ever since, right?
FINAL THOUGHT...
I really wish this were JUPITER HOLLOW ASCENDING and Bette Midler² & Lily Tomlin² were messing yo shit up in elf ears and jet pack shoes.
That's all I got when I'm looking at it. I'm a "No". But maybe you feel differently?
Reader Comments (15)
I love that you ran out of good things to say so quickly that this is also sneakily a positive review of the Captain America sequel.
And I agree about Mila Kunis-- she doesn't need bells and whistles, and "Oz" was <I>atrocious</I>.
lol "big business"... I love that movie!
I don't care. Bound is everything. The nineties had more to offer than Tarantino ripoffs and Weinstein pimped prestige properties.
Wow this looks awful but EDDIE REDMAYNE
A dissenting view on the Wachowski's downward spiral: I think the quality of the films zig-zags and would rank them as follows:
1. The Matrix (1999)
2. Bound (1996)
3. Cloud Atlas (2012)
4. The Matrix Reloaded (2003)
5. Speed Racer (2008)
6. The Matrix Revolutions (2003)
I'm a soft Maybe So on the new one.
I'm a YES in a similar way that I'm a YES to M.Night Shyamalan films. I go into each film with the vain hope that the greatness the filmmaker(s) once showed will return (although, unlike M.Night, I don't think any of The Wackowski's Post-The Matrix films have been awful. In fact, I thought Cloud Atlas was decent). In saying that, on its own merits I think this looks like it could either be a big mess or mildly entertaining... or a mildly entertaining mess... We'll see...
Is it me or have you lately been more "slutty"?! I don't remember you having this much emphasis on boners and similar stuff before.
Bound. "I drive a truck." "Of course."
I'm weirdly a Yes. Eddie Redmayne if nothing else--its about time they set that boy free. Sean Bean is a plus. And.....there is a woman named Tuppence Middleton in the cast. But unless it gets stellar reviews, I'll wait until I can enjoy it with an adult beverage (or several) and a blond.
YES to Eddie Redmayne, especially wet Eddie Redmayne. This is one of those things I didn't know my life was missing.
The rest is... maybe so, I guess? I love the Wackowskis (except Cloud Atlas), but this looks and feels like just another mid-range fantasy Warner Brothers programmer, from the Zac Snyder overcluttered CGI mise en scene subdivision, and the more gonzo stuff that's distinctively Wachowskian - like Channing Tatum with fucking elf ears - seems primed to backfire SPECTACULARLY.
But they had the sense to get Eddie Redmayne all wet and gorgeous, so maybe there are other hidden virtues yet to present themselves.
agent 69 - you're the one with a sex position in your name! I think it's spring fever I'll get over it by June.
Any EDDIE REDMAYNE is too much EDDIE REDMAYNE.
I agree with Cloud Atlas sucking a lot. It could have been so much better.
I think this movie will suck too. I feel like they don't hire the right people for the over the top aspects of it all. They need some otherworldly looking actors in their projects.
What's wrong with slutty?
Anyways, i have no clue what this movie is about but i am mildly interested. Plus, eddie redmayne is giving off some evil queen vibe and i'm totally here for that.
-_- It was just the easiest number to remember. I SWEAR. I'm practically a virgin. I swear. :P
Agent69--If I had a nickel for every time I said....uh...heard that..........