Jupiter Ascending 2015

Christy Lemire, ChristyLemire.com: A lot of people spent a lot of time and a lot of money making a lot of movie, but there's not much there. Read more

Wesley Morris, Grantland: Upon exiting, my wearied delight with Jupiter Ascending coexisted with pure bafflement. But I exited knowing that I'd seen a movie no other filmmaker could have made. Read more

Jake Coyle, Associated Press: Jupiter Ascending unfolds as a mostly entertaining mess, a cosmic soup of baroque grandeur that the Wachowskis swim happily through, even if few others will. Read more

Lou Lumenick, New York Post: A movie so jaw-droppingly awful that you can't wait to see what happens next (and that was without the use of mood-altering substances on my part). Read more

Joe Morgenstern, Wall Street Journal: A theatrical feature that, in a rational universe, would never have been put in production, let alone seen the light of day. Read more

Soren Anderson, Seattle Times: This movie is worse than bad. Let's try "epically awful" on for size. "Insanely bloated"; that works. Me, I'll settle for "just plain silly." Read more

Peter Debruge, Variety: A disappointing step backwards for the Wachowskis, who lose themselves in an over-designed, underdeveloped 'Star Wars'-style land grab in space. Read more

Ignatiy Vishnevetsky, AV Club: What's sort of remarkable is the way the Wachowskis manage to digest all of their high- and low-brow influences into something like a cohesive worldview. Read more

Bill Goodykoontz, Arizona Republic: If you figure it out, let me know. Read more

Ty Burr, Boston Globe: The credits for "Jupiter Ascending" acknowledge nearly 1,600 artists, technicians, visual imagineers, and pixel-pushers who have labored mightily to bring this story to life. Their efforts only reveal the underlying conceptual hollowness. Read more

J. R. Jones, Chicago Reader: Like many fantasy features by the Wachowskis, this is a wonder to behold, full of minutely realized gadgetry, but a chore to follow, full of barely realized characters. Read more

Michael Phillips, Chicago Tribune: Visionaries often lose their way in their own visions. The majority of moviemakers and movies stick to outdated, predictable formulas and conventions. The Wachowskis, on the other hand, are not afraid to strand you early and often in Jupiter Ascending. Read more

Peter Rainer, Christian Science Monitor: I enjoyed this movie more than the last two films from the Wachowskis, the interminable Cloud Atlas and Speed Racer. On the other hand, "The Matrix" it's not. Read more

Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post: This sci-fi-inflected fantasy has many a wince-worthy romantic exchange between stars Channing Tatum and Mila Kunis. Read more

Cary Darling, Fort Worth Star-Telegram/DFW.com: For the sake of Neo, Morpheus, the red pill, [and] the blue pill... it would be great to report that the Wachowskis indeed got their groove back. But the only groove they're going to see is the one on multiplex floors as moviegoers stampede the exits. Read more

Joe McGovern, Entertainment Weekly: Jupiter Ascending's early cleverness dries up quickly, especially when Kunis is offscreen, leaving us with just another incoherent sci-fi spectacle. Read more

Todd McCarthy, Hollywood Reporter: Anyone hoping for the old Matrix magic to rematerialize (it's been 15 years) is due for more disappointment. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: The universe that the writers-directors have created is so numbingly complex that keeping track of what is going on can cause headaches. Read more

Tony Hicks, San Jose Mercury News: "Jupiter Ascending" is the film equivalent of a baseball slugger unleashing a huge swing and missing. Read more

Rene Rodriguez, Miami Herald: The worst movie the Wachowskis have ever made. Read more

Rafer Guzman, Newsday: The Wachowskis trade their "Matrix" magic for the silliest space opera since "Flash Gordon." Read more

Richard Brody, New Yorker: The Wachowskis create a churning, swooping C.G.I. universe that's decorated to the corners of the frame without taste or imagination. Read more

Stephen Whitty, Newark Star-Ledger: We should expect a little more from the Wachowskis than this. Read more

Andrew Lapin, NPR: It's not bad in that fascinating, Wachowskian way-it's bad in the same way as most bad sci-fi. Read more

Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News: Talk about lost in space. Read more

Manohla Dargis, New York Times: A big, woozy, spacey fairy tale with a science-fiction exoskeleton and a core of pure mush. Read more

Steven Rea, Philadelphia Inquirer: "Technically, I'm an alien," Mila Kunis voice-overs, by way of introduction to this epically kitschy space opera ... Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: Jupiter Ascending feels like a truncated, Cliffs Notes version of something that might have worked a lot better as a mini-series. Two hours is too short for this tale and the end result suffers greatly because of that restriction. Read more

Richard Roeper, Chicago Sun-Times: Where were the Guardians of the Galaxy when we needed them? If only they had prevented the disastrous atrocity that is "Jupiter Ascending" from infiltrating Earth's movie theaters before it was too late! Read more

Peter Travers, Rolling Stone: This kind of pandering FX padding, unnurtured by humor or heart, is what shifts Jupiter Ascending from a shambles to a fiasco. The Wachowskis wind up where you never expected to find them creatively: on the ropes. Read more

Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com: This movie often plays like a super-expensive, 21st-century version of one of those "Star Wars" knockoffs made around 1980 by people who weren't George Lucas. Read more

Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle: Few will be sorry to have seen "Jupiter Ascending." The Wachowskis have devised a compelling universe, and if they want to continue exploring it for a sequel or two, well, for once that's probably a good idea. Read more

Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune: Stay away, stay away. Read more

Joe Williams, St. Louis Post-Dispatch: Instead of a cinematic drag queen like the guilty pleasure "The Fifth Element," "Jupiter Ascending" is a mutant that's mostly dog. Read more

Christopher Orr, The Atlantic: Don't even get me started on the aliens, many of whom would have been turned away from the cantina door in Mos Eisley. Read more

Brad Wheeler, Globe and Mail: A beautiful muddle from The Matrix-making Wachowski siblings. Read more

Peter Howell, Toronto Star: Watching Jupiter Ascending is like reading a menu of genre munchies at a drive-thru "B" movie burger stand. Read more

Alonso Duralde, TheWrap: There is no "up" in space, and there is no "the top" over which The Wachowskis will not go in Jupiter Ascending, a sci-fi saga that's convoluted and silly, but also exciting and enthralling over the course of its two-hours-and-change running time. Read more

Tom Huddleston, Time Out: You have to hand it to Lana and Andy Wachowski: they don't do things by halves. Read more

Jim Slotek, Toronto Sun: A grab-bag of things Wachowski, Jupiter Ascending is short of anything new. On its own terms, it's an entertaining action film that doesn't overstay its welcome. But it's less than we expected. Read more

Claudia Puig, USA Today: The story is laughably inane and uninvolving. Read more

Alan Scherstuhl, Village Voice: The movie's a fascinating mess, grand and gaudy, often hilarious. Read more

David Edelstein, New York Magazine/Vulture: Jupiter Ascending is inane from first frame to last - the dialogue is so clunky, I wondered if George Lucas had been brought in to do the rewrite. Read more

Stephanie Merry, Washington Post: There's simply not enough time to give any of these stories their due, so instead, each one feels abbreviated. Sometimes, during conspicuous editing, you can almost see where more movie was supposed to exist, like a narrative with phantom limbs. Read more