Movie · 2015 · Science Fiction, Fantasy, Action · 2h 7m · PG-13 · English
Curator score: 0.3/10 (353.6K ratings)
Expand your universe.
Overview
In a universe where human genetic material is the most precious commodity, an impoverished young Earth woman becomes the key to strategic maneuvers and internal strife within a powerful dynasty…
Ratings
Curator score: 0.3/10
IMDb: 5.3/10
Letterboxd: 2.06/5
Rotten Tomatoes: 27%
Metacritic: 40
TMDB: 5.5/10
Director
Lana Wachowski, Lilly Wachowski
Production
Warner Bros. Pictures, Village Roadshow Pictures, RatPac Entertainment, Anarchos Productions
Cast
Channing Tatum, Mila Kunis, Sean Bean, Eddie Redmayne, Douglas Booth, Tuppence Middleton, Nikki Amuka-Bird, Christina Cole, Edward Hogg, Maria Doyle Kennedy, Vanessa Kirby, Jeremy Swift, Bae Doona, James D'Arcy, Kick Gurry, Tim Pigott-Smith, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Ramon Tikaram, Nicholas A. Newman, Ariyon Bakare
Curator Review
Verdict
A spectacularly overstuffed space opera with sincere world-building, wild production design, and a real taste for melodrama, but also clumsy plotting, uneven performances, and a tone that can feel both earnest and ridiculous at once. It’s more interesting as a gloriously misguided big-studio original than as a cleanly successful blockbuster.
Best for
Viewers who enjoy maximalist sci-fi world-building and campy excess
Fans of earnest, high-concept space operas
People who like ambitious failures with memorable imagery
Audiences open to melodrama, absurdity, and tonal whiplash
Skip if
You want tight plotting and coherent mythology
You dislike camp or exaggerated performances
You prefer grounded action over glossy fantasy
You’re looking for a polished, crowd-pleasing blockbuster
Overview
Jupiter Ascending is the kind of studio sci-fi spectacle that feels both ludicrous and strangely alive. The Wachowskis build a universe of dynastic intrigue, genetic exploitation, and baroque visual invention, then throw it all at the screen with absolute conviction. Even when the story buckles under its own mythology, the movie keeps inventing new textures, new costumes, and new forms of ridiculous grandeur.
Worth noting
What makes it linger is that it is never cynical. Its ideas about class, labor, inheritance, and bodily ownership are messy but pointed, and the film’s sincerity gives the absurdity a weird emotional charge. The action can be chaotic and the performances wildly uneven, but the movie’s commitment to its own cosmic soap opera is hard to dismiss.
Bottom line
For some viewers, that will be enough to make it a cult favorite; for others, it will be a frustrating mess. Either way, it is far more distinctive than the average franchise product, and its failures are inseparable from the scale of its imagination.
Top Letterboxd reviews
matt lynch (3.5★) · 1948 likes
The Wachowskis steadfastly refuse to make stale violent power fantasies for teenage boys, which seems to piss everyone off. Here you have a young woman who becomes a heroine not because she picks up a gun or is "as tough as a man", whatever that means, but because she chooses not to have her future determined by class or capital (even if it is space-class and space-capital) or really anyone else but herself, wrapped up in an unapologetically dorky homage… more The Wachowskis steadfastly refuse to make stale violent power fantasies for teenage boys, which seems to piss everyone off. Here you have a young woman who becomes a heroine not because she picks up a gun or is "as tough as a man", whatever that means, but because she chooses not to have her future determined by class or capital (even if it is space-class and space-capital) or really anyone else but herself, wrapped up in an unapologetically dorky homage… more
Sean Gilman (4★) · 1846 likes
I don't know what to make of a world that rejects this and adores every Marvel movie. Things don't make sense to me.
mia lee vicino (2.5★) · 1655 likes
channing tatum plays a genetically engineered “military wolf” who zooms around in zero gravity roller skates because his wings were cut off (everyone knows wolves have wings). “bees are genetically designed to recognize royalty” is something that sean bean, who is genetically spliced with a bee, has to say with a straight face. the main plot point is that a group of 14000-year-old royal alien siblings are attempting to either marry or murder their 25-year-old human mommy. but the nuttiest part is in the first 20 minutes ... when mila kunis tries to sell her eggs to buy a $4000 telescope on ebay
Patrick Willems (3★) · 1330 likes
For every element that doesn't really work, there's a scene where, like, Eddie Redmayne screams at his dragon man henchman in a factory inside Jupiter and I can't help but respect that
demi adejuyigbe · 1113 likes
This movie is off-the-wall whackadoodle and unfairly maligned. Is it "good?" Not really. It's a massive cyberpunk hodgepodge of every sci-fi blockbuster of the past few decades wrapped in the skin of the Star Wars prequels. But, does it still fucking rule? Yes! It's a massive cyberpunk hodgepodge of every sci-fi blockbuster of the past few decades wrapped in the skin of the Star Wars prequels! The villains are harvesting human bodies for youth on some Peter Thiel shit! Channing… more This movie is off-the-wall whackadoodle and unfairly maligned. Is it "good?" Not really. It's a massive cyberpunk hodgepodge of every sci-fi blockbuster of the past few decades wrapped in the skin of the Star Wars prequels. But, does it still fucking rule? Yes! It's a massive cyberpunk hodgepodge of every sci-fi blockbuster of the past few decades wrapped in the skin of the Star Wars prequels! The villains are harvesting human bodies for youth on some Peter Thiel shit! Channing… more
A similarly maximalist, candy-colored blast of sincere excess from the same filmmaking sensibility, with the same commitment to visual invention over realism.