DVD review: Jupiter Ascending

DVD Review
Mila Kunis stars as Jupiter Jones, the most glamorous cleaner in the worldMila Kunis stars as Jupiter Jones, the most glamorous cleaner in the world
Mila Kunis stars as Jupiter Jones, the most glamorous cleaner in the world

This week’s big DVD release is Jupiter Ascending, an epic sci-fi movie which is easy on the eye but hard on the brain.

Mila Kunis stars as Jupiter Jones, the most glamorous cleaner in the world. When she’s not cleaning she’s arguing with her feisty Russian family, dreaming of telescopes and bemoaning the lack of love in her life.

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Events billions of light years away soon change all that. You see the universe is run by big corporations and a trio of bickering siblings from an ancient super-rich space family are having a spat over their inheritance.

Eddie Redmayne overacts wildly as the meanest of the three. He’s a trans-galactic businessman with a successful line in harvesting humans. Earth is his big cash cow.

That’s right, Eddie wants to harvest us and turn us into some weird youth juice that the universe can’t get enough of. Jupiter is the spanner in the works. She doesn’t know it but she’s the reincarnation of Eddie’s mother, the true owner of Earth.

Sounds complicated? There’s more. Channing Tatum plays Caine, a human-wolf hybrid soldier sent by Eddie’s also nasty but slightly less angry brother to retrieve Jupiter, Sean Bean turns up as a space Yorkshireman. At one point there are loads of bees.

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The plot is ridiculously convoluted. Visually everything in the film is stunning, and the action sequences are explosive and exciting. But all the characters get lost in the muddle of the plot so it’s very difficult to care about what’s going on.

Jupiter Ascending is the latest big budget sci-fi from the Wachowskis, the duo who brought us the excellent Matrix and it’s awful sequels. Unfortunately this is another misfire and not one I’d recommend.

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