Two Word Movie Review - "Jupiter Ascending"

Here are your two words:

Space Junk

This movie was so disappointing that I debated wasting any time writing a review on it.  I had this mental debate during the movie.
Which is sad because this story had so much potential... and the power of two big stars, Mila Kunis and Channing Tate-yum.

Imagine Harry Potter, instead of being an awkward 11-year-old orphan, is a beautiful 20-something female immigrant named Jupiter.  She is cleaning toilets when she finds out she is (not a wizard, but) an intergalactic princess whose siblings are fighting over whether or not she should remain alive to share their dead mother's inheritance.
This could be good, right?

It could have been.
It should have been.

The Husband and I discussed it afterwards and decided that what was missing were the plot points that would have made us care about the characters, such as: 
- Please spend more time telling me about the relationship between the two military buddies and why they might be motivated to protect this princess.
- Jupiter's story about her failed love life could have been better illustrated by showing some bad relationship scenes instead of stuffing the information into a too-long, breathy, sexy (is that what it was supposed to be?) monologue.
- The dynamic between the three royal siblings is briefly shown to us on a strange planet that means nothing to us after an event that is teased in front of us but not fully explained. They speak in such a way that it's hard to understand what they're talking about.

Yeah, I get that they were hiding key information in order to surprise us with it later, but they do it wrong.  Clues are revealed clumsily and too slowly.  You figure out what's going on long before Jupiter does, and it pisses you off how thick she appears to be.
No one in the theater is surprised by anything.

This movie suffers from the Hollywood mindset of "more action and effects are greater than character development". 
They could have left in more scenes where we get to know the characters and taken out more chase and fight scenes.

Speaking of the chase and fight scenes, they sucked.
Most of the action happened so close to the camera that it was difficult to SEE what was going on.  (The Transformer movies do the same thing, and it's terribly annoying to me.)  "Hm, something just flashed past the screen; was that the hero or a bad guy?  I don't know, and I no longer care."
Most of the action scenes were a waste of my time. So you can understand how disappointing it is that they decided to leave the action in and edit out all the parts I could have cared about.

Oh, that's right.  It's available to watch in 3D.
That's why they kept all the action crap.

The trailer leads us to believe the story is about the hero soldier; however, the movie itself is all about the girl whose only redeeming trait, aside from bees worshiping her, is her devotion to her Earth family.
And they screw that up too by showing us only a family that is selfish and mean.  There is no affection whatsoever between the family members.  We are simply supposed to assume it's there... buried deep under the desperate need for money at almost any cost.  I don't like her family; I'm not sure we're supposed to.  It's very confusing and frustrating.

Don't bother with this movie.

If you're still curious about it and simply must see it, borrow it for free from your library when the DVD when it comes out.

***

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