Jupiter Ascending
Warner Bros. Pictures | Release Date: February 6, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
40
METASCORE
Mixed or average reviews based on 40 Critic Reviews
Positive:
8
Mixed:
17
Negative:
15
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
85
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeFeb 2, 2015
Who cares if the story is occasionally impenetrable or if some gags land with a thud when the thrills and the eye candy keep coming at such a breathless pace? Jupiter Ascending doesn’t break the new ground that the Wachowskis have managed in the past...but the film never slacks in its efforts to wow us. Read full review
83
HitfixDrew McWeenyFeb 2, 2015
Fast, frequently teetering on the cusp of the ridiculous, and eye-poppingly pretty, Jupiter Ascending is a wicked slice of entertainment, and a heck of an antidote to the typical February box-office blahs. Read full review
80
Total FilmRichard EdwardsFeb 3, 2015
Both visually and in the action stakes, Jupiter Ascending could give pretty much any space movie a run for its money. Read full review
75
San Francisco ChronicleMick LaSalleFeb 5, 2015
A film very much of its moment, in ways both good and bad. But the important thing is that its virtues are extraordinary, while its flaws are easy to forget because they’re so common. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubIgnatiy VishnevetskyFeb 4, 2015
It is, in other words, just a few musical numbers and a whiff of marijuana smoke short of being the Thomas Pynchon book of big-budget, effects-driven movie sci-fi. Read full review
70
Village VoiceAlan ScherstuhlFeb 6, 2015
The movie's a fascinating mess, grand and gaudy, often hilarious. Read full review
63
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Brad WheelerFeb 5, 2015
A beautiful muddle. Read full review
63
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliFeb 5, 2015
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 full review
60
The GuardianPeter BradshawFeb 4, 2015
It’s all very chaotic and entertaining, like a bizarre cult sci-fi TV show that somehow survived a threat of mid-season cancellation. Read full review
60
Time Out LondonTom HuddlestonFeb 3, 2015
This is one mad mess from start to finish... But the sheer ambition is impossible to ignore, and the sense of fun is infectious: you may fear for your sanity during Jupiter Ascending, but you’ll come out smiling. Read full review
58
Entertainment WeeklyJoe McGovernFeb 6, 2015
Jupiter Ascending’s early cleverness dries up quickly, especially when Kunis is offscreen, leaving us with just another incoherent sci-fi spectacle. Read full review
50
SalonAndrew O'HehirFeb 6, 2015
It has the kind of jumbled, pseudo-spectacular, overdecorated digital design that the eye and mind can’t really take in. Individual shots can be gorgeous, but there are just too damn many of them, and the overall experience is the visual equivalent of eating an entire wedding cake. Read full review
50
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaFeb 6, 2015
As for Kunis, she gets to wear some out-of-this-world couture, and gets to make her entrance at a marriage ceremony on a floating dais, kind of like Katy Perry at the Super Bowl. Read full review
50
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerFeb 6, 2015
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 full review
50
The New York TimesManohla DargisFeb 5, 2015
With its nods to the original “Star Trek” and David Lynch’s proto-steampunk hallucination “Dune,” it seduces the eye with filigreed flourishes even as the mind reels from some of the mildewy storytelling. Read full review
50
Los Angeles TimesKenneth TuranFeb 5, 2015
Jupiter Ascending is best during its purely visual moments, of which there are many... All of which makes it a shame that the only sense the Wachowskis can count on is their visual one. Read full review
50
New York PostLou LumenickFeb 5, 2015
An instant candidate for the so-bad-it’s-sort-of-great hall of fame, Jupiter Ascending is totally bonkers, a sort of black-velvet-Elvis mash-up of “Star Wars’’ and every other sci-fi/fantasy movie of the past half-century right up to “The Hunger Games.” Read full review
50
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsFeb 5, 2015
The movie doesn't really work, but the jet boots would be the envy of Iron Man, and they allow our hero, unwisely named Caine Wise, to speedskate through the air, leaving pretty little trails of light over downtown Chicago. Read full review
50
The DissolveChris KlimekFeb 5, 2015
Though it strives mightily to compete in every category, it’s not as funny as Guardians, as awe-inspiring as Interstellar, as thrilling as Edge Of Tomorrow, or as provocative as Under The Skin. Read full review
50
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzFeb 4, 2015
It's blandly, often listlessly bad, check-the-blockbuster-boxes bad, just-out-of-film-school-and-shopping-a-tentpole-screenplay bad. Read full review
40
The TelegraphRobbie CollinFeb 11, 2015
Cinema-goers desperately need a fresh, unusual and franchise-free blockbuster to rally behind, but Jupiter Ascending isn’t it. Read full review
40
Arizona RepublicBill GoodykoontzFeb 5, 2015
The Wachowskis never lack for ambition. It's in the execution where they run into trouble. Read full review
40
EmpireKim NewmanFeb 3, 2015
Like too much filmed space opera, this is wonderfully imaginative when it comes to costume, art direction, special effects, spaceships and incidental alien creatures but stuck with old-hat character types and a resolutely unspecial storyline. It’s frequently entertaining, but as much for its terrible moments as its inspired touches. Read full review
40
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyFeb 2, 2015
Even with all its familiar action tropes, less-than-fresh special effects and loopy plotting, the most depressing element in the Wachowski siblings' latest sci-fi mash is that, as they conceive it, human society has been around for more than a billion years but is still presided over by a rivalrous British-style royal family that treacherously behaves as if it were the 1550s. Read full review
40
VarietyPeter DebrugeFeb 2, 2015
While the Wachowskis have always put their greatest emphasis on aesthetics, they allow the visual impulse to get the best of them here, investing so much attention in creating unique fashions, technology, architecture and design that they’ve blinded themselves to the huge logical gaps in their own story. Read full review
38
Boston GlobeTy BurrFeb 5, 2015
Dazzling to behold yet puny of imagination, the movie takes the “Star Wars” formula — hero myths nicked from Joseph Campbell, cutting-edge visual effects, comic-strip dialogue, goofy-looking aliens — and reduces it to generic Big Box shelf product. Read full review
38
USA TodayClaudia PuigFeb 5, 2015
The sci-fi film's reported $175 million budget must have gone largely into loopy production design, wild costumes, outlandish hairstyles and colorful make-up. It certainly didn't go into developing a coherent script or coaching believable performances. Read full review
38
Slant MagazineChris CabinFeb 5, 2015
The film is ntermittently inventive in its visual and physical effects, but its politics are unthinking and obvious, a cheap anti-authoritarian tantrum imbedded in an intergalactic action-melodrama. Read full review
38
St. Louis Post-DispatchJoe WilliamsFeb 5, 2015
Channing Tatum is a lot of things, but he’s not a stoic Superman like the role he plays here, which is made more laughable by prosthetic pointy ears. Read full review
38
Movie NationRoger MooreFeb 3, 2015
An excruciatingly empty chunk of eye candy that spends over two hours trying to convince us they’re not ripping off “Dune.” Read full review
37
Washington PostStephanie MerryFeb 5, 2015
It seems that Andy and Lana Wachowski have never lost that childlike ability to dream. But they also haven’t mastered the grown-up power to rein it in. The story they tell in Jupiter Ascending could probably occupy an entire television season. There’s way too much here for one movie to hold. Read full review
30
Austin ChronicleMarc SavlovFeb 4, 2015
While the totality of Jupiter Ascending is just too much for its own massive narrative heft to support, kudos to the Wachowskis for beating back against mainstream Hollywood by casting actors of all races and genders in key roles, something they’ve been doing since their 1996 debut "Bound." Read full review
25
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanFeb 7, 2015
The most frustrating thing about the movie (as with “Cloud Atlas”) is that it could’ve been memorable, had the Wachowskis turned their vision over to more talented storytellers. Read full review
25
Rolling StonePeter TraversFeb 6, 2015
This kind of pandering FX padding, unnurtured by humor or heart, is what shifts Jupiter Ascending from a shambles to a fiasco. In an effort to win back audiences by lowering their standards and their daring, the Wachowskis wind up where you never expected to find them creatively: on the ropes. Read full review
25
Portland OregonianJeff BakerFeb 5, 2015
The creators of Jupiter Ascending spent $175 million on special effects and 25 cents on a story. Audiences do not get their money's worth. Read full review
25
Miami HeraldRene RodriguezFeb 5, 2015
Sadly, Jupiter Ascending turns out to be the exact opposite: the worst movie the Wachowskis have ever made. Read full review
20
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierFeb 5, 2015
Talk about lost in space. The whacked-out outer-space melodrama Jupiter Ascending has embedded in its genes the DNA of “Barbarella” and “Flash Gordon,” some dust from “Dune” and even a bit of Michael Jackson’s Disneyland short “Captain Eo.” Read full review
16
The PlaylistKevin JagernauthFeb 5, 2015
There is an emptiness that lingers around Jupiter Ascending. From the lack of original thought in its conception to the expensive excess in its execution, the directors' usual bag of tricks can't manage to fill the void. Read full review
0
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternFeb 5, 2015
Heaping derision on such a woeful debut may be tantamount to shooting fossils in a tar pit. Yet this lumbering industrial enterprise, which was written and directed by the Wachowski siblings, Andy and Lana, is bad enough to be granted landmark status. Read full review
0
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperFeb 4, 2015
There’s no defending Jupiter Ascending. There’s no explaining Jupiter Ascending. There’s no way Jupiter Ascending isn’t making an appearance on my list of the Worst Films of 2015. Read full review
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