Let There Be Movies

Review by Elliott

From the writers that gave us the Matrix and V for Vendetta, comes their latest masterpiece, an epic space opera with amazingly beautiful graphics, Oscar winning performances and the most thought provoking plot since Avatar…

Yeah…  just kidding, though the graphics were pretty spectacular. Now don’t get me wrong, I really wanted this movie to be great and went into it with some hopeful optimism. Sadly it just doesn’t live up to the hype of its older siblings in any way. With that said, I still enjoyed it. It just required taking this little blue pill first.

Cast

Mila Kunis as Jupiter Jones (Gives a decent performance, considering the script.)

Channing Tatum as Caine Wise (Is unnecessarily without his shirt for at least 50% of the movie.)

Sean Bean as Sean Bean (Makes it to the end of the movie without dying or turning into the bad guy.)

Eddie Redmayne as Balem Abrasax (His performance is bad enough, it might cost him an Oscar.)

Trivia

• On the date for the wide release of this movie, February 6th, 2015, Jupiter will be at its opposition. Meaning, it will be at its closest point to Earth, as well as have its face fully illuminated by the Sun.
• The film was originally slated for release for June 20, 2014. But the studio delayed the film’s release and pushed it back almost an entire year (9 months to be exact) to give the production more time in the post-production process.
• The crew created a rig of six cameras, called the Panocam, which was mounted on a helicopter and covered nearly 180 degrees of the action. During post production, the directors could combine the overlapped filmed footage, essentially creating a camera that could swing around the action independently of the helicopter’s actual flying path.

Plot

The House of Abrasax, is a family that has been in  power for nearly 100,000 years and controls large portions of the galaxy. Their power comes from seeding planets(with humans) and then 1000’s of years later harvest them and turning them into a liquid elixir that is essentially a fountain of youth. Jupiter Jones is a “normal” human, living a life she hates. Everyday she cleans other more prosperous peoples homes and dreams of a better life. However everything changes when she’s attacked by aliens who have been hired to kill her. Fortunately, she’s saved by Caine Wise, a humanoid who is part human and part wolf. Jupiter ends up finding out she is someone much more important than she thought and that the fate of earth rests with her. The plot follows her as she is captured and then escapes from each  of the leaders of Abrasax. Each time she is rescued by her inevitable love interest Caine. Yeah I know the plot is pretty deep. There more details than that, but you get the gist of the movie. The movie ends happily for the two of them.

Moral Application

When Jupiter Jones is first captured by Kalique Abrasax, she tells of their families history and how their power was established. As she concludes her monologue, Kalique states that the most valuable resource in the entire universe is time, not planets, not minerals, but time. This elixir that her family makes from harvested humans is the most valuable asset in the universe because it gives her more time. Although her reasons for valuing time were solely based on selfish motives, the belief still holds true and is discussed throughout the bible. In scripture we are encouraged to make the most of our time and reminded that life is like a vapor. How are we spending our time, is it being used to further God’s kingdom or for our own personal interests? These are important questions for us to consider on a daily basis.

Ephesians 5:16 – Making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.

Psalm 90:12 – So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom.

James 4:13-15 – Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit”— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.”

Closing thoughts

Like I said at the beginning, I really wanted this to be a great movie and in the end, I still enjoyed it, but I know a lot of other people will not. So lets start off with the bad…

• Whoever thought Eddie Redmayne would make a good villain should be punished. The majority of his dialogue is hard to understand and on top of that just look at him, not exactly intimidating. Many of the other bad guys are also difficult to understand. I don’t understand how they couldn’t have fixed this in post-production. If you don’t want us to hear them don’t give them lines to speak.
• This movie tries to hard to be grand and epic. Throughout the movie they make references to all sorts of things specific to their universe, but don’t take the time to expound upon them. Granted this is only a 2 hour movie, but seriously just leave that extra stuff out, that or write a book.
• The humor, wow was it bad. I could tell what parts were suppose to be funny, but they felt forced and out of place with the rest of the movie. Take a lesson from Guardians of the Galaxy, that how you mix humor and sci-fi.
• Channing Tatam was unnecessarily without his shirt for like 50% of the movie. I’m exaggerating a little bit, but it was like they were try to advertise for Magic Mike 2.
• What point was the movie trying to make? I’m still trying to figure that out. It seemed like the Wachowski’s were trying to make some to social  and economic points, but they weren’t at all clear and just got lost in the explosions.

Okay that’s enough bad, so here’s what they did right.

• This may be one of the most beautiful movies I have ever seen. Granted there was large portions of CG but it is really well done CG. The sets, costumes, and backdrops are equally amazing.
• Another similar aspect of the movie that I liked was the art/architectural styles. So many different genres were represented. At one point, everything looks steampunk, then cyber punk, then futuristic, then current tech. On the sets you could see different ancient cultures represent, specifically Egyptian, but other as well.
• The technology/ weapons were very cool. The whole movie was pushed back 9 months to work on the visual elements and you can tell.
• Kaine’s anti gravity boots are amazing. He pretty much spent the entire movie roller-blading in the air. They were even cooler than Star Lord’s boots.

So to sum it all up, I thought the universe that they created was interesting and looked awesome, it was just poorly executed.  It would make a better video game than movie. I’m still glad I saw it, but probably wouldn’t recommend it to everyone.