Jupiter Ascending

Jupiter Ascending (2015), written and directed by the Wachowskis, follows Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis), a Chicago cleaning woman who feels stuck in a life of early alarms and other people's toilets. Her ordinary routine ends when Caine Wise (Channing Tatum), an interplanetary warrior, tells her that her destiny extends beyond Earth.

She is pulled into a vast universe of feuding dynastic houses, led by the Abrasax siblings (Eddie Redmayne and Douglas Booth among them). Sean Bean plays a former soldier among her allies. Supporting cast member Douglas Booth has described the film's universe as a cross between The Matrix and Star Wars.

The film is a lavish, pulpy space opera. It mixes chases, fantasy-romance, bureaucratic satire and elaborate effects, and it asks what an ordinary person is worth in a cosmos run by the powerful.

At its core the film is a fairy tale about worth and power. A person who has been told she is nobody discovers that she matters. The film also stresses that she must claim agency on her own terms and not simply accept rank or inheritance.

It also works as a critique of hierarchies, in which the powerful treat others as resources to be consumed. Reviewers noted that, for some viewers, it is an intensely personal Wachowski film wrapped in sci-fi thrills and moralistic reflections.

Some read the film as a sincere, personal Wachowski fairy tale about self-worth. Others read it as deliberate camp and pastiche, a "black-velvet-Elvis" mash-up of familiar sci-fi tropes, as one critic put it. A third reading calls it a conventional chosen-one story that is too reactionary to count as a feminist one.

The film was a box office disappointment and received generally negative reviews. Criticism centered on the incoherent screenplay, Eddie Redmayne's melodramatic performance and over-reliance on effects. Some critics praised the visuals, the originality and Giacchino's score.

It has since built a cult following. Female science fiction fans in particular appreciated its campiness and its departure from typical female action film stereotypes. Commentators noted the gulf between critics and online fans, and some saw the signs of a cult movie in the making.

Critics were largely negative. Rotten Tomatoes lists the film at 27%, and audiences gave it a CinemaScore of B−. Praise went to the visuals, world-building, score and sheer ambition. Complaints focused on the confusing plot, the heavy reliance on effects and the villain's performance. Online fans were far warmer than critics, embracing its camp and its imaginative excess.