Combine elements of Puccini, Shakespeare, a plausible Cheney-Medici commercial dynasty, art work to die for and a staggering musical score from Michael Giacchino. Run the action through three major battles, four skirmishes, and naked immortality. Let gene patterns rise to what functions as religion. Do all that and you have a world where living 91,000 years is routine and Profit drives our "Gold Rules" mantra to control every choice.
Not a dull moment.
Certainly not when the Cheney-Medici dynasts, called the Abrasax Family, go to war. Indeed, the problem for critics and many viewers is the shear density, the complexity of what flies by on the screen. "Jupiter Ascending" seems to me the most complicated film I've seen in a decade.
Here's from the San Francisco Chronicle:
“Jupiter Ascending” is a film very much of its moment.... But the important thing is that its virtues are extraordinary, while its flaws are easy to forget because they’re so common... the Wachowskis must be given credit....The Abrasax Family way of life is presented in a fine grain detail. At the other end of the balance scale, of course, "Jupe," the twenty-something house cleaner, began her life at the bottom. Similar to Mila Kunis in real life -- moved by her parents from Ukraine to Los Angeles when she was seven -- Jupe's pregnant mother flees the Soviet Union with the coin in her pocket. "Technically I am an alien" and an illegal: "Somewhere in the middle of the Atlantic [says Jupiter] my mother pushed me out. I was born without a country, without a home, without a father."Anyone who... loves technology, or is freaked out by technology, or questions what we call reality will find that the Wachowskis have been thinking about all that, too.
It may take more than one viewing to understand the whole setup, but the essential thing to know is that [this] young scrub woman in Chicago... seems like an average person, but there is a powerful entity on the other side of the universe who absolutely wants her dead....
The first hint that “Jupiter Ascending” is something more... is a long conversation between Jupiter and Kalique, a member of the universe’s [Ruling Class.] Kalique, a cheerful woman with a motherly appeal, lays out the joys and possibilities of living in this new world. Her description is genuinely seductive. [Kalique also demonstrates immortality. Most beautifully.] Yet implicit in everything she says is a blithe, underlying cruelty.
From there, as an illegal, she goes on to cleaning toilets. Key phrase: "I hate my life."
This is not "Star Wars." It is even further from "Star Trek." This is a tale of High Capitalism. The worlds of the universe are organized across galaxies in pursuit of Profit. Pleasure exists, but what matters is Profit. The weaker, more primitive planets are "harvested" for raw material to distill a physical product that provides the ruling class Royalty with immortality.
"There is one thing worth fighting for. Worth killing for. Time."Comparing this fantasy "Verse" with life on Earth, we don't quite have immortality. Not yet. Money can extend life, of course. Poverty kills. Even if Elon Musk gets involved, we're a year or two from developing "Regenex" and getting immortality to market.
We do kill whole species for Profit.
We wreck local ecosystems. We ignore global warming.
We lie that "jobs" are the motivation. It's all for the people, don'tcha know.
What's alike starts with the Abrasax Family heirs and our "conservative" political billionaires. They are both utterly corrupt. They view the 99% as their lawful prey and see ordinary virtues as weaknesses.
They hire monsters. If the genetically engineered creatures serving the Abrasax Family strike you as over the top, do consider Ted Cruz.
One more thing: in the world of "Jupiter Ascending" science has solved all the big problems. Nonetheless that phrase "I hate my life" recurs from one character to the next. It informs choices all over the Verse.
Perfect lives, built on perfect exploitation. They go anywhere. They build anything. They "repurpose" species to fill workplace niches. They have it all.
"They want another life. We can give them that."What could go wrong?
Still, you hear from a space police navigator bringing his ship out of a portal that "this is the overpopulated, steaming cess pool of a planet we call home."
The more they have, the tougher it gets.
Sounds like us. Honestly. We go around the world and give people water wells. We give people modern medicine. We do not give them birth control to offset population pressure.
We do seem to be growing more and more humans, just like the Abrasax Family.
"It's capitalism. Shxt rolls down; profits fly up."At Fandango some 400 people who have seen the movie rate it Four Stars.
Assuming you're not going to "Fifty" or "Sponge Bob," this is spectacular. And plan to see "Jupiter Ascending" twice. There's one whole helluva lot happening, going by at break neck pace. Getting overwhelmed first time through is kinda the norm.
Enjoy !!
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Note: The family name "Abrasax" may be a play on Hebrew and related languages.
Consider "Abraham" which means "father of a multitude." Also the term "abraxas" for "the holy word," sometimes written as "abrasax," which puns as a borrow from Gnostic mysticism. in the pun it can convey both a Supreme Being and literally the giver of life and death.
"Father of death" is not impossible. When a character says that he "gives life... and takes it away" that is not a exaggeration. And at the end of this chapter of Jupiter's story, as she learns to fly, the universe/Verse of Profit continues unchanged. Profit rules. There is plenty of room to inject elements of Andronicus/MacBeth/Lear down the road.