Jupiter Ascending worked very hard to
make a lazy movie, which makes my head spin the more I think about it.
Creative choices
abound in this movie. Every setting and costume catches the eye. If you watched this movie on mute, you'd swear something awesome took place on the screen.
But looks often prove deceptive.
This movie most
annoyed me with its protagonist. As I mentioned in an earlier post for
EntertainmentMicroscope.blogspot.com, Hollywood tends to allow female
protagonists only under the condition that they prove helpless and passive.
Jupiter’s protagonist (whose parents
named her Jupiter, and the story
takes place on Jupiter, and she was
born while Jupiter remained visible in the night sky from Earth) proves passive, helpless,
and the least interesting person in her own movie.
Jupiter makes a
total of three “decisions” in this movie, two of which prove terrible and made under the instruction of a man. The third "decision" stands as
something of a “no shit” moment.
Beyond that,
Jupiter spends her own movie experiencing one kidnapping and subsequent rescue
after another.
Her love interest,
Caine Wise, shows up to rescue her while she flails are arms, screams, and
falls to her death like Lois Lane off the roof of a skyscraper.
The message here
seems that she, without a man, she becomes powerless, out-of-control, and
doomed. With a man, she can fly.
Sure, every lonely
person feels this way at some point, but for a protagonist, this consistent
behavior proves pathetic.
The question
quickly becomes, Why did the writers even include Jupiter? What purpose does
she serve? Because it she’s destined to experience this adventure. Yes, once again, Hollywood reaches for the flimsiest
excuse on hand: Destiny.
Jupiter and Wise’s
love story offers little. He “loves” her because she looks attractive. She “loves”
him because he possesses a talent for violence.
The message from
Hollywood continues to exist as “Nothing makes a woman hotter than when she
watches you beat and/or kill a dozen people.”
What happens when
her looks roll down hill or he runs short of people to punch?
I understand that
the writers possess about an hour and a half to make these two people fall in
love, but try something a little deeper, please.
The actual plot
makes little sense. Plot holes plague nearly every scene. Entire scenes appear
missing. Major characters disappear and rematerialize as structurally convenient.
A secondary story
exists (for half a second) beneath the surface, where the movie almost says something about how the
first world benefits at the expense of the third world, but the movie almost immediately
abandons that path and nosedives back into nonsense. The story never again truly expands upon this subtext.
The ending offers a nice, cozy message, but via a series of scenes that feel forced to the point that they jar the audience.
A lot of effort and
creativity went into this project. It seems a shame that the filmmakers
failed to put that effort into the two most important factors: the protagonist
and her story.
Thanks for reading.
Daughters of Darkwana received a sweet, succinct
review, which you can read here, http://www.thebookeaters.co.uk/daughters-of-darkwana-by-martin-wolt-jr/
Also,
the third book in my series, Diaries of
Darkwana, will hit Kindle just as soon as I find out what happened to my
cover artist.
I
publish my blogs as follows:
Tuesdays:
A look at the politics of the entertainment world at EntertainmentMicroscope.blogspot.com.
Wednesdays:
An inside look at my novels (such as Daughters of Darkwana, which you can now find on Kindle) at Darkwana.blogspot.com
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