It’s nice to see a big blockbuster with a strong female protagonist, but Jupiter Ascending consistently feels like The Wachowski’s attempt to adapt a bad comic book: their unique stylistic flourishes only shine through in brief moments, and the rest feels mundane. This could have been a fun throwback, but it feels unrealized and confused.

The Wachowski’s film isn’t completely incoherent, and it has an admirable set-up, but it is ultimately utilized to no effect. Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) is the daughter of a poor Russian immigrant who lost her father before she was even born. She spends her days scrubbing toilets, wiping countertops, and looking at dresses in the closets of the snazzy houses she cleans with her mother and their maid company. She consistently sighs “I hate my life” as she awakes, never looking forward to the monotonous experiences she has to face. Soon enough, however, her life is changed in a way that’s far more extravagant than she could have expected. Soon, she finds herself flying over Chicago with a strange wolf-man-hybrid-creature named Kane (Channing Tatum) and whisked away into outer-space, to Jupiter (how convenient!) to face off against the tyrannical Abrasix family, who happens to own pretty much the whole galaxy.

It’s an enigmatic premise – the idea that our world is really just a smaller part of a much larger ecosystem is not a new one, but it inspires some moments of awe at the realization of just how large the scope of this film is. Unfortunately, this becomes even more squandered potential when the film fails to offer insight into the other alien species, planets, or political workings of this galactic trade system. No, most of the time is spent on Jupiter and Abrasix as the plot hops from despicable arranged marriage, to bureaucratic drama, to backstabbings, to front stabbings, to betrayals, and so much more: it all feels incredibly messy, and often not in a good way. There are, admittedly, some fun moments to experience and the action sequences have a unique, visceral-yet-operatic quality that makes the film watchable for the first two thirds. The last act truly falls apart, however, with a villain switch and so, so many explosions. It devolves what could have been wondrous science fiction into Michael Bay-esque banality.

On an acting front, Jupiter Ascending is amazingly average. Mila Kunis easily gives the most respectable performance of the cast (perhaps of her career) as Jones: she has the spunky attitude the Wachowskis seem to desire for her character, and her line delivery is usually on point. Channing Tatum seems to have taken a paycheck job, as he’s nothing more than the action hero who spends twenty five percent of the film shirtless, but serves his purpose well enough. Sean Bean plays Sean Bean, and Eddie Redmayne takes a shocking turn from his brilliant performance as Stephen Hawking in 2014’s The Theory of Everything to a laughably bad villain here. His is easily an early contender for worst performance of the year.

If nothing else, Jupiter Ascending should be lauded for its visuals. The lavish production design, costumes, make-up, and visual effects are terrific, and provide a really imaginative facade for what is otherwise a very hollow film.

Jupiter Ascending is a film that means well, and clearly has an inspired vision behind it (The Wachowskis did make the sci-fi masterpiece that is The Matrix after all), but is an underwhelming experience in the end. It’s few redeeming values really aren’t enough to save it from the slog it becomes.

Rating: 2.5/5