Jupiter Ascending (2/10)

by Tony Medley

Runtime 127 minutes.

OK for children.

It’s bad enough to have to sit through over two hours of Channing Tatum or is it Tatum Channing? I can never remember how these two last names fit together. But to do it in what is labeled as a “science fiction action adventure film” that is such high fantasy that it gives you a headache to try to figure it out, that’s just too much to ask of a human being of ordinary intelligence. I’m certain that this will be a real hit with a nine-year-old crowd because the 3-D is wonderful and the special effects spectacular. But for an adult, the endless chases and fights that make no cohesive sense whatever, make one’s mind turn off.

Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) has some heritage with an extraterrestrial civilization of which she is totally unaware. Worse, how she got it is never explained in the movie. Caine (Tatum [Channing?]) Is a Genetically Engineered Ex-Military Hunter, whatever that means, who comes to earth to, what? We aren’t sure and it’s hard to believe that anyone could care. In any event, he takes her into space where she meets Eddie Redmayne in a role he will certainly want to forget if he ever has the unenviable task to watch this on the screen, not unlike Paul Newman who was always trying to forget his role in The Silver Chalice (1954). This is a real come down from Remayne’s Oscar®-nominated role last year in The Theory of Everything.

Not that this is anything to alert the media about, it’s agony watching Tatum muddle through yet another script. Granted, I guess he is supposed to be some sort of an automaton, but that’s the way he always appears in all his roles, regardless of what is actually called for.

The only reason to see this movie is to watch the 3-D and the special effects but, good as they are, they are certainly not worth 127 minutes trapped in a theater with Channing Tatum and this story.