In Defense of 'Jupiter Ascending'
movies, etc. # 4
Hi again folks! I took a week off from the newsletter on account of lots of packing and driving and anxiety, but at last I’m back! I had a tough time figuring out what to write this week, since new releases have all left me feeling pretty lukewarm lately (I’m talking about you, The Forever Purge, Fear Street Part One, and F9).
Luckily, Netflix came to the rescue, suggesting a movie that means a lot to me: Lana and Lilly Wachowski’s much maligned space opera, Jupiter Ascending. For all its flaws, Jupiter Ascending is one of my favorite and most-rewatched comfort movies, so I had to put it on. As I watched, I began to mount a defense in my head for the 27%-on-Rotten Tomatoes masterpiece(ish). Here it goes.
First off, Jupiter Ascending is not really science fiction. That’s a blatant lie since there are aliens and spaceships and genetic splicing BUT the point is that more than science fiction, Jupiter Ascending is fantasy. Jupiter Jones lives in a small Chicago apartment with her big Russian family, spending her days scrubbing toilets and her nights dreaming of the stars. With the encouragement of her cousin Vlad, she decides to sell her eggs in order to buy a golden telescope, just like her now-dead father once had. In selling her eggs, Jupiter inadvertently trips a sort of intergalactic APB on her genetic code, summoning a horde of little CGI guys to hunt her, called Keepers. She is promptly rescued by Caine Wise (Channing Tatum), a part-dog bounty hunter with boots that let him skate on air and a little gun that barks like a novelty dog version of Jingle Bells when he shoots.
Basically, Jupiter is the exact genetic reincarnation of the former matriarch of the House of Abrasax, the most powerful dynasty in the universe. This essentially makes her Queen, leading the three heirs to the Abrasax throne, Balem (Eddie Redmayne), Kalique (Tuppence Middleton), and Titus (Douglas Booth) to all simultaneously try to murder, seduce, and marry this woman who looks exactly like their mother. The conflict between the House of Abrasax and Jupiter primarily centers around a life-extending substance called RegenereX, harvested from the human populations of less advanced planets, like Earth.
As I was saying, Jupiter Ascending is fantasy—a fairy tale even: girl goes from lowly maid to Queen of the universe, saving her family and falling in love with a brave warrior along the way. The parallels to Cinderella are clear, and Titus even refers to Jupiter and Caine as “beauty and her beast.” I think a lot of viewers’ problems with the film stem from the disconnect between what they expect from a science fiction film and the fairy tale that the Wachowskis created. This was exacerbated both by the fact that the Wachowskis created the modern sci-fi blueprint with The Matrix and by the nature of recent blockbusters—Jupiter Ascending isn’t self-aware and ironic like Guardians of the Galaxy, it isn’t mindless explosions like Transformers: Age of Extinction, it isn’t gritty and serious like Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and it isn’t based on pre-existing IP like all the above.
Jupiter Ascending is goofy, epic, original, and genuine. That’s the special ingredient that the Wachowskis bring to all their works, be it Speed Racer or Cloud Atlas: empathy. No matter how goofy it gets (Gugu Mbatha Raw sports deer ears) it is so clearly a labor of love created by people who genuinely love humanity. Jupiter’s family, for all their flaws and lack of understanding, still love her deeply, and accept her. The entire ethos of the villains of Jupiter Ascending (and thus the antithesis of the film) is captured in Balem’s view that “some lives will always matter more than others.” In one interview, the directors compare the film to The Wizard of Oz, saying “Could you take a character like Dorothy who’s a female and who goes on this journey and she doesn’t have to beat people up? She doesn’t have to fight constantly or use weapons and kung fu in order to be the hero. Can she just use empathy?”
Jupiter doesn’t just use empathy though. While the Wachowskis are certainly more interested in exploring the vast world they’ve created through Jupiter’s eyes, there are still plenty of sufficiently entertaining action sequences. These scenes, though serviceable, are the film’s weakest link, especially the final face-off between Jupiter and Balem which takes place in Jupiter (the planet)’s Great Red Spot. More exciting are the scenes where the Wachowskis get to show off the bureaucracy and excess of their intergalactic society, with lush scenery and colorful characters like Intergalactic Advocate Bob (Samuel Barnett), Jupiter’s robot guide through the bureaucratic nightmare of inheriting Earth.
High on the list of reasons to watch Jupiter Ascending is Eddie Redmayne as Balem, the petulant head of the House of Abrasax. Redmayne’s performance is high camp—he wheezes out royal orders like he’s trying to get fired, pursing his lips as if he’s pretending to be on Love Island. According to Redmayne, Balem’s voice was inspired by the fact that the character “had his larynx ripped out by this wolf man”—which to the best of my knowledge is information not included in the film. He also called it a “pretty bad performance by all accounts,” but what does Eddie Redmayne know.
Critics at the time also took aim at the romance between Jupiter and Caine, citing poor chemistry between Kunis and Tatum (I disagree). While the relationship is slightly underdeveloped, the Wachowskis have fun with it, especially with the fact that Caine is part dog. In one scene, when Caine tells Jupiter that he has more in common with a dog than with her, she blurts out “I love dogs! I’ve always loved dogs.” In another, Jupiter asks Caine if any part of him wants to bite her—very Bella Cullen née Swan.
Ultimately, the heart of Jupiter Ascending lies in the issue of identity (unsurprisingly for the Wachowskis). Throughout the whole film, people are constantly trying to tell Jupiter who she is, especially the Abrasax children calling her their mommy. The force with which she delivers the line “I am not your damn mother” in the climactic scene underscores the importance of the message that other people cannot dictate your identity for you. That heart, along with a richly developed fantasy world and unabashedly campy fun are what make Jupiter Ascending such a perfect comfort film.
As a bonus, Michael Giacchino’s score activates the part of my brain conditioned by The Lord of the Rings to make dopamine whenever I hear whatever type of music this is:
Thanks for reading— I know this one is a wee bit long and messy. Go watch Blow Out to celebrate the Fourth! I’ll be back with another post on Friday, so don’t forget to: