Jupiter Ascending - Blu-ray

Film: Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis), the daughter of Russian immigrants, hates her life. Day in and day out, she must clean the apartments of Chicago's upper class before returning exhausted at night to the small room she shares with her mother (Maria Doyle Kennedy) and aunt. But as frustrating as her dreary daily routine may be, she soon longs for it to return. Because when she tries to sell some of her eggs to get some money, she is nearly killed by strange creatures in the clinic. At the last second, the mysterious Caine (Channing Tatum) saves her life. Now the young woman finds herself in the middle of an intergalactic war in which she seems to play a central role. Because supposedly her genetic makeup entitles her to an incredible inheritance, which some powerful rulers want to take away from her at any cost. And so, in alien worlds, she must fight not only for her own life, but for the lives of every single person on Earth, following a calling that has been preordained for her all her life...

With Jupiter Ascending, siblings Andy and Lana Wachowski return to the genre they once revolutionized with their Matrix trilogy. Their latest work is again a visually impressive science fiction fairy tale with more or less hidden socially critical undertones. And again, the focus is on an ordinary human who turns out to be the chosen one in an essential battle between good and evil. But a new revolution of the genre should rather not be expected here. Jupiter Ascending is entertaining by all means. But besides a few moments of wonderful self-irony and a few great effects, there are also quite a few moments of unintentional comedy and attempted eccentricity, which ensure that in the end a very ambivalent feeling remains.

Whenever the action is in the foreground, the entertainment value shoots up noticeably. During longer purely dramaturgical scenes, however, it becomes clear time and again that the Wachowskis have concentrated too much on dazzling costumes or making the aliens look as eccentric as possible, thereby losing sight of the actual story. Otherwise, the terrible dialogues (bees don't lie) and the half-baked elaboration of good ideas can hardly be explained. Because of the fact that the story is not very original, but at the same time there is a cramped attempt to be different by hook or by crook, a very unharmonious overall picture is created, where intention and result are very far apart.

This makes Jupiter Ascending, however, still far from being a bad film. The show values are very high in many moments and there are enough scenes where this colorful science fiction opera is really fun to watch. But since it's just in such moments that it becomes clear that besides the pleasure there's also a feeling of disappointment. Because somehow one had hoped that the Wachowskis after some flops with this fantasy adventure finally got their act together again. But the film doesn't quite make you forget the unspeakable Speed Racer.

The actors deliver average to good performances. Channing Tatum, as a cross between a man and a wolf, is reduced to doing bare-chested, fast-paced action sequences. Mila Kunis is also allowed to just look pretty in snazzy costumes, while Sean Bean and Eddie Redmayne can at least show a hint of really good acting. However, Redmayne overdoes it so much in some scenes that you want to deny him his well-deserved Oscar win for The Discovery of Infinity. All in all, no one really leaves a lasting impression here - neither in a positive nor in a negative way.

If you are just looking for a colorful effects spectacle for the eye, brimming over with great ideas, and you like it a bit more unusual designs like elephant aliens or alien ladies with huge ears, you will definitely have a lot of fun here. But if you're hoping for a really good and surprising genre contribution on the level of the first part of Matrix, you'll rather experience an unintentionally funny miracle of the disappointing kind with Jupiter Ascending. Therefore, the following applies: neither really good, nor grottily bad and therefore, with deductions, well worth seeing!

Picture + Sound: The wonderful effects, the opulent décor and the fantastic worlds of the film also come into their own excellently in the home cinema, with the picture also showing a pleasant depth in the 2D version. Colors are powerfully mixed and overall sharpness is at a very high level. Even in darker scenes, the many small details come out very well. The audio is in a very lively DTS-HD MA 7.1 mix that not only allows the voices to ring out of the speakers with good clarity, but also provides plenty of movement in the surrounds time and time again with well, heavily realized sound effects. Very good!

Extras: The bonus material consists of 7 featurettes with a total running time of just under an hour. The whole corresponds to the usual promo material and is thus qualitatively far from the excellent extras of the Matrix films. Still, there are some very interesting insights into the production here as well, which make watching these short documentaries absolutely recommendable overall. Specifically, the featurettes deal with the development of the characters Jupiter Jones (approx. 6:56 min.) and Caine Wise (approx. 5:18 min.), the directing style of the Wachowskis (approx. 7:25 min.), with the design, sets, make-up and costumes for the different worlds (approx. 9:36 min.), with the hybrid creatures (approx. 10:25 min.), the visual effects (approx. 9:35 min.), as well as the dramaturgical concept of the different worlds (approx. 9:34 min.). In addition to some film clips and numerous interviews, there is also quite a bit of behind-the-scenes footage to be seen in the features, which turned out to be extremely interesting, especially in the areas of sets and visual effects. Good!

Conclusion: Jupiter Ascending is a colorful effects spectacle for the eye, brimming with great ideas. It is to the Wachowskis' credit that they have developed a science fiction story that is not a sequel, not a remake and not a novel or comic adaptation, but something entirely their own. The fact that this doesn't always work and sometimes even comes across as unintentionally funny is a shame, but it doesn't make the fast-paced adventure a bad movie by any means. On Blu-ray, the fantasy tale presents itself in excellent picture and sound quality. The extras are okay, but leave you wanting more. Overall, despite some weaknesses at the end, there is still a deserved: recommendable!

An article by Frankfurt-Tipp