 It seems like all my Carside reviews are negative. I assure you I like films, but this is going to be another brutal one. I just got done seeing Jupiter ascending late last night. Here's the review. Let me first start out by saying The Matrix is one of my favorite movies of all time. It's a top 10 for sure. The effects, the action, everything about the story was incredible. I love it. I can watch it today. I saw it three times in theaters when it came out. Wachowskis did a brilliant job, and I looked at them like these are the guys that are going to change the film industry. They're going to keep coming out with great films. Fuck was I wrong? Now, I believe I'm in the vast minority, but I also love Speed Racer. I thought it was a really fun film. It was different. And that's one thing you can say about the Wachowskis is they do different movies. They don't settle for the standard affair. Cloud Atlas was not my cup of tea. I thought it was a total train wreck. And here we are at Jupiter Ascending, a movie that I did not have confidence in going out. It was delayed like nine months. It came out in the shittiest time of the year when they dump all the crap movies. And you can see why. It's a disaster. It's an unmitigated disaster. The acting, I guess, is fine for what it is. Mila Kunis doesn't have to do a lot of range. I don't know if she can really pull off a lot of range. Black Swan, I guess she was solid in. Channing Tatum's fine. He's the pretty boy. He's got the action down. He's half-man, half-wolf. That's a thing now. And he also has angel wings that were cut off. Because I guess that's what we do now in 2014-2015 is you have to lose your wings and get them back by drinking a lot of Red Bull, of course. And then you get sued because it didn't actually give you wings. There is a little bit of a spoiler for you here. Sean Bean doesn't actually die. I did even stay for post-credits just to make sure they didn't kill him off at the end just out of good measure. So that was also off. I don't know how I feel about Sean Bean staying alive for the full runtime of a film. They almost have to have a sequel now just so they can kill him off. The villains are very hammy, especially the one that you saw in all the trailers. I have no idea what his name is. I'm not even going to bother going to IMDb for this. He is basically a poor man's Voldemort mixed with a General Zod. He has a stupid accent and he always has this mannerism. You need to find them. You need to find her and bring her to me. And then out of nowhere he just goes nuts. Bring her to me. I WILL FIND HIM! Like straight General Zod shit. So that was bad. Not even in a good way. Not even in a fun bad. Just sin bad. Let's just focus on story because that's really where this thing falls to pieces. It has a lot of different things it's trying to do. It's a Disney fairy tale. It's kind of got this fifth element vibe but without the fun the fifth element it has a lot of Star Wars prequel feel based on the special effects and the music which I swear is ripped off straight from Duel of the Fates. There's a part where I thought did they just resample that song? That can't be legal. Lucas is... I mean Lucas won't see this film but if he did he'd probably be pissed. Mila Kunis plays Jupiter Jones I think was her name. She's basically Cinderella, she cleans toilets, gets up at 5am or 4.45am and is looking for something more than her provincial life. Yes, I'm also going to reference Beauty and the Beast as they straight up do in the film. Then there's the sci-fi Game of Thrones feel they were trying to go with and failed where we have the three siblings, these alien beings, that want to take control of Earth so they're fighting for it. But Mila Kunis is the real owner. She's the heir to the throne or the heir to the throne. So to get these one-on-one interactions, Mila Kunis has to be stolen three times over and Chey Tate comes in to save her each time. It's like fucking Mario Brothers and she's Princess Peach just moving from one castle to the next. She gets taken more than Liam Neeson's daughter and by the end of it you wonder what the hell was accomplished. She doesn't do anything with her powers. It is basically the Matrix 3 all over again. The whole fucking thing's over and nothing's changed. Special effects are fine, they put a lot of money into it obviously. Even you haven't seen a million times over. Even their trademark bullet time, which is more of just a slow motion here now, doesn't really feel right. They use it in such weird times when like a car is just rolling over and it's finished rolling over then they slow it down. Like really? Was that necessary? We do get our PG-13 ass shot from one of the females so that's something. That helps. What else is there to say? Not much. I'm going to give this a 4 out of 10. That's being very generous. There's a lot of stupid here. I guess you could say I've lost all faith in the Wachowskis at this point. There's not a lot I'm excited for. If I hear another project they're doing I'll give them a meh. I might see it. I might not. I don't know what they need to do. Maybe they need to go back the well, do some more Matrix films, try to save face from that shitty third act and just give us something awesome to talk about again. They were at one time really revolutionary directors and I'd love to see them return to that.