Jupiter Ascending

JUPITER ASCENDING (Andy Wachowski and Lana Wachowski, 2015)

JUPITER ASCENDING looks and feels like it might have been one of the biggest box office hits of 1984 or one of the most expensive flops. The special effects are primarily digital than practical, but otherwise the film’s sensibility stems from the aspiring blockbusters that came in the wake of STAR WARS rather than the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Writer-directors Andy and Lana Wachowski populate grand settings and spaceships with characters whose often goofy designs signal child-like imagination at play. JUPITER ASCENDING’s sincerity opens it to mockery, yet its resistance to circumscribed notions of cool makes it more endearing.

Like most heroes in this kind of mythic story, Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) comes from a humble background and harbors no idea of the pivotal role she will play in saving humanity. She was born on a shipping container while her mother was illegally immigrating from Russia to the United States. Although family members tell her she’s destined for great things, it’s hard to put much stock in those words when she and her relatives are scrubbing toilets and cleaning houses to make a meager living.

What Jupiter doesn’t know is that she is the key to settling a family squabble out in space. The three Abrasax siblings own planets that they seed and harvest like corporate farms. Earth ranks among the most valuable of such commodities. Balem Abrasax (Eddie Redmayne) owns Earth, but his brother Titus (Douglas Booth) and sister Kalique (Tuppence Middleton) have designs on taking possession of it from him with Jupiter’s assistance. Titus hires disgraced legionnaire Caine Wise (Channing Tatum) to find Jupiter before Balem has her killed. Saving Jupiter from bounty hunters does not remove her from danger, though. She is whisked into deep space where she must claim her rightful royal position and survive the scheming Abrasax clan.

Strip away the science fiction and fantasy trappings, and what remains is a fairy tale with some Shakespearean drama and economic criticism thrown in for good measure. Kunis makes for a plucky princess who, while occasionally needing to be rescued by a wolf/human hybrid in gravity-surfing boots, is capable of navigating interstellar bureaucracy and negotiations. The Wachowskis have great fun steering Jupiter through the gears of government as they pay comedic tribute to BRAZIL and bring in Terry Gilliam for a cameo to certify the reference. The Bard-like flourish is found in the privileged Abrasaxes, whose cosmic property battle sets events in motion.

With its view that humans are unaware of the forces controlling their lives and suggestions of pansexuality, JUPITER ASCENDING is readily identifiable as a film by the makers of THE MATRIX trilogy. Whereas that series became bogged down in philosophical queries, this film considers matters of consumption and purpose as seasoning than the meat. The dawn chase across Chicago’s skyline and on its streets is a dazzling setpiece that demonstrates the Wachowskis still know how to stage an action sequence not bound to the laws of physics. Their personal touch is responsible for the hokeyness that might make JUPITER ASCENDING appear quaint and perhaps laughable at times, but that lack of cynicism also allows them to pull off the sillier elements in this fable.

Grade: B-

The Theory of Everything

THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING (James Marsh, 2014)

Stephen Hawking’s ideas as a theoretical physicist produce more questions than answers for the layperson because of the complexity of his thoughts. THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING, a gauzy biopic about his first marriage, also leaves plenty to consider, although not by reason of great intricacy in what it presents. Rather, it can be maddeningly vague in what it leaves unexplained or tastefully hints at. Based on his ex-wife Jane Hawking’s book, the film gives the impression of a story that has been sanitized to secure the subjects’ authorization.

The film opens in 1963 at Cambridge, where Hawking (Eddie Redmayne) is a doctoral candidate searching for a topic. At a party he meets Jane Wilde (Felicity Jones), an arts undergraduate studying French and Spanish. They hit it off that night, and Jane gives Stephen her phone number, which he often examines as though it’s an equation to be solved. Although she belongs to the Church of England and he doesn’t believe in God, the difference doesn’t keep them from being happy together.

To this point Stephen has exhibited some clumsiness that he doesn’t think twice about, but after a nasty spill one day he is diagnosed with motor neuron disease. A doctor informs him that the neurological disorder is gradually weakening his muscles. Eventually he will not be able to control his body. His brain will not be affected, but the average life expectancy for someone with this affliction is two years. Burdened with this news, Stephen avoids Jane and doesn’t tell her about his condition. When she learns the truth, he’s ready to break things off to spare her the pain and allow him to focus on his work. Instead she proclaims her love. They marry, have children, and see him become internationally lauded as his body deteriorates.

In math one must show the work. In THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING a tidy calculation is arrived at while scrubbing away the arithmetic that could support it. Director James Marsh and screenwriter Anthony McCarten use montages to gloss over important stretches that could make the case for the great love that get Stephen and Jane through difficult times. The film jumps from post-ALS diagnosis to married life with a child, ignoring the transition to a more incapacitated state while he finishes his doctoral paper.

THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING also makes another leap in which choir director Jonathan Hellyer Jones (Charlie Cox) becomes integrated into the Hawking family as a caretaker. At her mother’s suggestion a stressed Jane takes a brief time to herself by singing at church. Prior to the montage the unspoken attraction between Jane and the widowed Jonathan implies that she may turn to him for comfort in crisis. After the sequence of Jonathan assisting Stephen and becoming like a member of the household, Jane informs their helper that she is pregnant. Because of this elision the audience wonders if they have been intimate--Stephen’s parents certainly suspect it--yet Jane gives a vociferous denial before the two confess their feelings to one another.

Time and again THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING fails to dig into the emotional nuances and challenges, preferring to scurry along to the next key moment. The film collapses time so that the Hawkings’ marriage and Stephen’s professional success appear to endure because of predetermination. For circumstances rife with emotional and physical struggles, it all looks remarkably light on conflict. Redmayne is good at conveying the wit, rambunctiousness, and intellect trapped inside Stephen even as his body betrays him. Jones suffers beautifully as a woman devoted to a man reliant on her. THE THEORY OF EVERYTHING stops short of making them both saints, but in smoothing over their conflicts, it does a disservice to the hardships they bore. It’s not that every complication needed to be detailed but that Stephen and Jane’s relationship shouldn’t be simplified to where they become sentimental mascots for vowing to stick with someone through sickness.

Grade: C