O.K., it's another movie in the Space Opera genre. The high-level plot is based on Family. And damn, the FX knocks your socks off.
"Ho-hum" ??? Well, not. Mila Kunis is the lead. Tatum Channing rocks as a splice, warrior dog-man. Overall the cast is top level stage-trained England. Kunis gets to flaunt her Russian -- born in Ukraine -- and if you find smart women sexy, she's got it in spades.
It's capitalism. Technology in "Jupiter Ascending" has used millennia and multiple planets to find a bloody lives-for-a-life route to immortality. Literally a way to trade lives for another bought life. Quotes:
-- "It's capitalism. Profits go up; shit goes down."
-- "Some lives are more important than others."
-- "There is one commodity. Time."
-- "They want another life. We can give that."
"Another life" is done with processes that start with planet scale "harvests." (I'd apologize for SPOILER except that this is explained in full with the very first exterior scene off-Earth.)
High Capitalism. Immortality. You think they've got us by the balls today, the universe of "Jupiter Ascending" takes it to control of life span. Good ole Robber Baron madness drives the fight -- plus a pinch of Roman murder-rage to add spice.
The control is direct. Hands on.
While this is always a space opera, "Jupiter Ascending" rolls out dialogue as dense as the Shakespeare histories. Helluva set of runs including quite a set-to from Eddie Redmayne. Everything interacts. If you can stay glued to dialogue flow for 2 hours and 7 minutes, you'll have a shot at getting all of it first time around.
W.S. and parts of Charles Dickens. And dialogue where you are hit with a couple dozen new words to decode on the fly. (Roughly speaking, a teched-up parallel to the Henrys.)
This is a $186,000,000 film. They put every dime of it on the screen.
First weekend numbers came to $50,000,000 with China and most of Asia set for the next couple of weeks. You can find "Jupiter Ascending" at IMAX.
The ticket pattern looks like another high-demand film from 2014 titled "Edge of Tomorrow" (in the United States.) This ended up taking in $250,000,000 overseas on only $100,000,000 domestic.
Don't expect to see corporate MSM say anything good about "Jupiter Ascending."
Viewing
Like most of us, the Wachowskis believe in small- and mid-scale capitalism. Large scale capitalism is bad news (with mergers and takeovers and financial capitalism ruling the roost.) Same for anything that gives corporations life-and-death power over people's lives.
If you're going to go, plan to see "Jupiter Ascending" twice with a couple days between to let it settle in. Sure, the high level plot is a fairy tale. The language and the visual details take you to a different universe. Then the beating heart of capitalism spurts blood at your eyes.
Well worth the fee for 3-D or IMAX if it's available.
