Jupiter Ascending Review

‘Could this get any weirder?’ Mila Kunis asks at one point in Jupiter Ascending. With bees that recognise royalty, hover shoes that allow the wearer to skate and surf in thin air, and Channing Tatum wearing pointy prosthetic ears; the answer is definitely no Mila, it probably bloody couldn’t.

Jupiter Jones (Kunis) is an ordinary girl from Chicago, born under a night sky with the stars aligned to spell out her destiny for future greatness. Her reality is cleaning toilets; day in, day out like a modern day Cinderella. Out of the stars, flies her very own Prince Charming... or perhaps that should be Prince Channing, with Tatum playing a hunter who has been sent to Earth to find his princess. He’s a genetically engineered ex-military hybrid; part man, part dog with gravity defying boots and a keen sense of smell. His mission is to discover Jupiter who, unbeknownst to her, is actually an intergalactic royal heir and in line to inherit a fortune that could decide the future of every human on Earth.

The Wachowski siblings have never really dealt in small ideas. Their debut Bound feels light years away from this epic space saga which eclipses even The Matrix and Cloud Atlas for the scope of its ambition. However, Jupiter Ascending is not the masterpiece that either The Matrix was, or that Cloud Atlas may one day be hailed as. It is brimming with action, special effects and imagination, but is sadly lacking when it comes to character and real emotion. This is like The Fifth Element on steroids; if you liked Luc Besson’s vision of the galaxy, strap in for more bonkers creatures and OTT villains than you can shake a misplaced Lightsaber at.

Jupiter Ascending has Hogwarts extras, Koopa Troopas from The Super Mario Bros movie, henchman dressed like gimps and plenty more crazy aliens for its down to earth heroine to contend with. It also has Eddie Redmayne on turbo charged uber-villain duties. As one of a trio of royal siblings that are squabbling over what to do about the threat that Jupiter poses to them, he chews the huge and extravagantly designed scenery to pieces. With his creepy features and strained voice, it is a shame when he resorts to moments of SHOUTING to make sure he tips over into pantomime.

Jupiter Ascending is a film filled with chasing and rescuing, but the action scenes go by in a bit of a blur of special effects and repetitiveness. Kunis gets a few chances to show her charm but spends most of the film going from outrageous costume to costume and either clinging to Tatum or chasing Channing (who forgets to put his shirt on for a large section of the film) for a quick kiss. If Jupiter Ascending isn’t numbing with its action, it’s getting bogged down with the likes of Sean Bean delivering pages of exposition. If you just want to know what's in Tatum's genes, you might want to wait for Magic Mike XXL.

Still, if you like big special effects driven space odysseys more like The Fifth Element than Interstellar, then Jupiter Ascending might just be the star you’ve been searching for. 

Watch the trailer:

More recent reviews from I Love That Film:

Selma

American Sniper

Birdman

The Imitation Game

The Theory of Everything

Whiplash

My Top 10 of the London Film Festival 2014

Quick disclaimer: some of these I saw at Cannes earlier this year but they were still playing at the LFF so I have included them here even if I didn't get a chance to see them again. I should also mention that I didn't get to see loads of films at the LFF such as The Imitation Game, It Follows, Whiplash or Men, Women and Children to name a few. Sounds like Whiplash may be many people's favourite of the festival but I'm afraid I will have to wait to see it like everybody else!

Anyway, here is my top 10. Click the titles for my reviews:

10. A Hard Day

9. Son of a Gun

8. Timbuktu

7. '71

6. Fury

5. Foxcatcher

4. A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night

3. Monsters: Dark Continent

2. Wild Tales

1. White God

More reviews from I Love That Film

More top 10 lists from I Love That Film

More from the London Film Festival 2014

PLEASE buy my book on The Blair Witch Project

Foxcatcher Review

It’s true what they say: money can’t buy you happiness or love, and it certainly cannot buy anyone talent. It is, as has so often been noted, the root of all evil and Steve Carrell’s miserable but wickedly wealthy wacko in Foxcatcher proves it perfectly.

Foxcatcher is the story of Olympic champion wrestlers, brothers Mark (Channing Tatum) and Dave Schulz (Mark Ruffalo). Mark is the younger brother who won a gold medal at the ‘84 Olympics while Dave is the smarter of the pair, a loving family man who coaches his brother with care and passion. The blue-collar brothers are an inseparable  team until the magnificently wealthy John Du Pont (Steve Carrell) sends an envoy out to collect Mark and fly him first class out to Du Pont’s beautiful Pennsylvania country house. Foxcatcher Farm is a mansion that would dazzle most but is particularly impressive to working class Mark, and a tour reveals the place is filled with race horses, trophies and Du Pont’s snooty mother (Vanessa Redgrave).

Du Pont is a sickeningly rich, sad little spoiled man-child. Patriotic, lonely and demanding, he manages to charm Mark (mostly with offers of money) and lures him out to live and train in a beautiful training facility on the grounds. Du Pont’s mother does not approve of wrestling and though her son is desperate for her to acknowledge his passion, commitment and talent, it is clear Du Pont is simply throwing money around in order to fuel his own ego and pride. He funds the American national wrestling team in the run up to the ‘88 Seoul Olympics in the hope of some of that gold rubbing off on him in the eyes of his unimpressed mother, but also out of a strangely philanthropic sense of national pride.

Mark moves to Foxcatcher but his brother Dave resists because he is hesitant to shift his happy family around the country. While Mark is the gold medal winner, Dave is smarter, more capable and an essential part of Mark’s success. With Mark keen to step out from the shadow of his brother, and DuPont realising the importance of luring Dave, the three men are about to come into a tragic conflict.

Foxcatcher is a true life tragedy that gifts its central performers with real characters that are an actor’s dream. The central trio of Tatum, Ruffalo and Carrell are superb with the former funny man on particularly fine form and almost completely resisting the urge to turn Du Pont into a caricature. Carrell dials down anything that could make Du Pont too amusing, though there are a couple of awkward moments that raise a laugh (check out his brilliant nickname he asks to be called by Mark) and instead becomes a highly unsympathetic but sadly understandable monster that is the dark heart of the story. Carrell will get all the plaudits due to his impressive physical transformation that is completely lacking in vanity but Tatum and Ruffalo also deserve their fair share of praise. Ruffalo is typically good as the loving family man but both him and Tatum have an incredible physical presence in the film also. Their body language and movement is instantly distinctive but seems to come from a place of years of practice wrestling in the gym.

Director Bennett Miller follows Moneyball and Capote with another fascinating true story filled with attention grabbing performances. Like Moneyball, the idea of money not being necessary for great sporting achievement is revisited but instead of the charismatic Brad Pitt figure, Carrell steals the film as a sad, pathetic, insecure little man who believes money can stop anyone saying no to him.

For those who do not know the real story behind the film, try to avoid spoilers as the ending will likely be a huge shock. For everyone else, the real surprise here is Carrell whose performance as a man a million miles from normal will likely be a strong contender come award season. Catch it.

Foxcatcher is playing at the BFI London Film Festival at the following times:

Oct 16th 7.15pm Odeon Leicester Square

Oct 17th 12.00pm Odeon West End Screen 2

Tickets on sale from 18th September.

More on the BFI London Film Festival 2014

More on the Cannes Film Festival 2014

Reviews of other films being screened at the festival:

White God

Timbuktu 

Wild Tales (Relatos Salvajes) 

The Blue Room (La Chambre Bleue) 

The Salvation 

Goodbye to Language (Adieu au Langage)

Mr Turner

 

New trailers: Godzilla, Edge of Tomorrow, Jupiter Ascending

Three brand new trailers to celebrate this festive season; Godzilla, Edge of Tomorrow and Jupiter Ascending.

Godzilla

The teaser trailer for Godzilla is finally here after a few false starts  and many videos going online before being taken down and blah blah blah. Starting with a group of soldiers being dropped into a city and putting us right in the point of view of one of them, there is an unbelievable air of dread about the whole thing. We get glimpses of a fair amount of destruction, a lot of running and a decent slice of emoting, particularly from Bryan Cranston, the artist formerly known as Walter White. Godzilla only briefly emerges from the smoke but it's a hell of a lot more of the monster than we got from the Cloverfield trailer back in 2008. Enjoy!



Edge of Tomorrow

Retitled from the probably a bit better but equally baffling All You Need is Kill, Edge of Tomorrow stars Tom Cruise and Emily Blunt. It looks a little bit Source Code, a little bit Groundhog Day but has a hell of a lot more big ass guns, big ass explosions and looks a hell of a lot of fun. The soundtrack to the trailer is suitably robotic and repetitive and I wonder if they are now going to release a new trailer to Fatboy Slim's Eat Sleep Rave Repeat but perhaps re-dub with Eat, Kill, Die, Repeat. Check out the trailer:



Jupiter Ascending

The Wachowski's don't look ready to dial down their desire for the epic anytime soon. After the critically divisive Cloud Atlas, they return with more science fiction, this time with Channing Tatum in distracting makeup and Mila Kunis looking gorgeous as ever. Not sure what is going on here but it certainly looks huge in scope, loaded with special effects and hopefully might have a few big ideas up its sleeve. Check out the trailer:



Any of these take your fancy?

Spoiling Side Effects: The Implications of its Revelations

Sorry to shout but DO NOT READ THIS ARTICLE IF YOU HAVE NOT SEEN SIDE EFFECTS!!!

I will be revealing major spoilers as this is not really a review but just more some of my thoughts on the film and films in general after seeing Steven Soderbergh's Side Effects starring Rooney Mara, Jude Law and Channing Tatum.

So please consider that fair warning. If you've seen Side Effects, I hope you might still be here. If you haven't, please do yourself a favour and go away!

Side Effects is the story of Emily (Mara), a terribly depressed woman whose husband Martin (Tatum) has been in prison for four years for insider trading. On his release, things should suddenly get better but it appears Emily just gets worse, driving her car into a wall and nearly killing herself on more than one occasion. Prescribed a new drug by her therapist Dr Banks (Law), it seems to make things better with Emily feeling happier but on the other hand it does come with some side effects.

THIS IS WHERE THE SPOILERS REALLY START.

Emily starts sleepwalking and doing all sorts of strange things while she is sleepwalking. Martin returns home one day to find Emily cutting vegetables and she turns around at stabs him repeatedly before returning to her bed as if nothing has happened. Martin dies and Emily wakes with no memory of what happened.

With Emily facing prison or being locked up in a secure psychiatric ward, Dr Banks wishes to help her as he feels perhaps somewhat responsible for what has happened. He enlists the help of Emily's previous therapist Dr Siebert (Catherine Zeta Jones) and tries to get to the bottom of what happened and why so that Emily will not face murder charges and will instead be considered Not Guilty for Reasons of Insanity.

OK NOW FOR THE MOST SPOILER-IFIC PART!

It turns out that Emily and Dr Siebert hatched an elaborate plan when Emily first start attending therapy sessions and they became lesbian lovers determined to do a bit of insider trading of their own. By faking depression and side effects, the pair decided they could murder Martin and also affect shares prices of a new drug. They nearly get away with it but for the brilliance and determination of Dr Banks to get to the bottom of the story.

So basically it turns out that not only are two women the villains of the film, but their villainy also stems from their homosexual desires to be together. This is where I find the film very troubling. We've seen this idea of lesbian psychopaths a million times before in Hollywood thrillers and it does strike me as more than a little homophobic. The film could also be read as deeply misogynist due to the two women being so evil, manipulative and hideous.

At first Emily is just a victim character and we cannot help but sympathise with her but then we realise she is an incredibly skilled performer and manipulator. The two women have hatched a brilliant plan and use their skills of manipulation to fool the doctors, the courts and everyone involved in the case, even Emily's own husband.

However I don't want to just jump quickly onto my high horse and claim that this film is either misogynist or homophobic. Just because a film has a woman villain or a lesbian villain, does not make it either of these things. Imagine a world where we only allowed old white men to be the villains for fear of offending anyone else. It would quickly get boring and predictable.

So I have to see Side Effects as just a clever thriller that repeatedly pulls the rug out from under audiences. To have a twist that suggests a (sort of) happily married woman actually has a lesbian lover is unexpected. To have a seemingly minor character emerge as a sort of puppet master pulling strings is unexpected. To have a character who appears to be an innocent victim turn out to be a manipulative, evil murderer is, again, unexpected! So all Side Effects representations serve to produce clever and unexpected revelations.

When I walked out the cinema, I wondered why I hadn't heard anyone accusing the film of being misogynist or homophobic but to do this would totally spoil the film for everyone. However it used to be that films like Basic Instinct and Fatal Attraction attracted a fair amount of criticism for their depiction of women and homosexuality so I wondered what has changed.

Sometimes you start a film and you get an immediate sense that this director or writer hates women. You don't get this at all with Side Effects but that only serves to make the rug pull more unexpected.

I guess the reason I want to particularly highlight the homophobia issue is that Hollywood just does not offer many representations of happy, normal, healthy homosexuality. If there were more of these representations, perhaps I wouldn't immediately think the film was leaning towards homophobia when the villains turn out to be lesbians.

Therefore my message is... lets have more homosexual characters from Hollywood and not just nasty scheming villain types! I can't wait for the day when we have a gay cop in a Die Hard style action extravaganza! Hell perhaps it could be a neat twist for Die Hard 6. John McClane finally comes to terms with why his marriage never worked out and comes out of the closet! Or maybe that's too far...

21 Jump Street Trailer

Not sure how fans of the original show are going to take this trailer.  Insult or update?  I only saw the Johnny Depp starring show a couple of times as a kid and remember very little about it.  Therefore this trailer made me laugh out loud.  It's got some hilarious lines and Jonah Hill is always excellent (looking forward to the upcoming Moneyball). 

The pairing of Hill and Tatum looks like comedy gold but hopefully this 3 minute trailer(!) has not completely sucked all the goodness from the film.  I've just got to make sure I avoid watching any more promotional material for the film so there's still something left to enjoy in March when it's released.  Anyone got an opinion?  Will this be funnier than Starsky and Hutch or The Other Guys?  I hope so.