Spoiler Alert: I will be talking about the plot of Jupiter Ascending in this post. If you were planning on seeing it, don't read this! (or maybe read it, I could be saving you 2 hours of your life)
Jupiter Ascending, starring Mila Kunis and Channing Tatum, was basically a massive box office failure, according to reviews on Rotten Tomatoes. I saw the movie with a friend who was incredibly ecstatic about seeing it, but I went in with low expectations. We both left with more questions cultivated than answered, along with matching perplexed expressions and an insatiable appetite for frozen yogurt (unrelated).
The main character is Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis), a young girl who "hates her life". She is involved with her family's housekeeping business, and therefore the film opens with Jupiter cleaning toilets and making beds. She apparently lost her father to a shooting connected with Russian mafia involvement. Jones goes about her life and daily activities unknowing that she is not merely a fatherless maid, but she is in fact the heir of the Earth.
[I don't know what this means, either. Continue reading for more nonsense]
Her genetic makeup apparently exactly replicates that of the former "Queen of the Universe", although she was born to different parents and is of an entirely different world. This causes problems for the children of the late queen, as they feel that the Earth (which, did I mention, is actually a human farm, being harvested to create some sort of an eternal youth serum) is rightfully theirs.
After being abducted and then tricked into almost marrying the Prince (would that make him her son as well? Do they share DNA? too many questions), Jupiter is saved by Caine Wise (Channing Tatum), who is a half albino wolf, half man, or as they refer to the hybrid, a "splice". Jupiter falls for him and his hunky dog charm almost immediately, and so ensues a kind of awkward and bizarre beginning to what at first seems like an unrequited crush, and then turns into an even more awkward and borderline creepy romance.
Basically, this film never solved a few problems and questions:
1. The Queen was never shown. We know nothing about her, and are not introduced to her.
2. If the Earth is merely treated like an animal farm, how did the Princes and Princess find Jupiter and determine that her DNA was identical to their mother's?
3. How do they know that she is a genetic match, and not just a look-alike?
31/2. Was her father's death related to this issue?
4. Does Jupiter end up continuing to farm the Earth when she ends up owning it at the end?
5. Will Jupiter and Caine's children be 1/4 albino wolf?
In the end, I'd say that the movie slightly exceeded my (low) expectations for a bizarre and confusing sci-fi type movie. The graphics and editing weren't horrible, so there were intriguing fight scenes, even if a lot of them didn't really make sense in regards to the story. The plot holes were gigantic, and the writing was terrible. However, the actors did an excellent job of working with what they had. I guess I'd give it 2 stars.
How we felt when we discovered it was too late to get froyo:
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