By Pierce Brenner

Jupiter Ascending follows the story of Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis), who works as a maid when an alien warrior named Caine Wise (Channing Tatum) suddenly visits her. Jupiter learns that she is the heir to the throne of a planet that is in the grip of civil war, and must stop a tyrant (Eddie Redmayne) who wants her dead.

Right from the time it was announced, I was skeptical about Jupiter Ascending. Its directors, Lana and Andy Wachowski, have been in a slump for over a decade, with their writing credits on V for Vendetta being the lone bright spot since the end of the Matrix franchise. I was even more worried when the movie was pushed back seven months from its intended release day. However, I believe every movie has potential to be good, so I went to see it. Sure enough, I was completely right to be worried.

First, I’ll give credit where it’s due. Like most Wachowski movies, the visual effects are fantastic. Sure, there are a few times where the CGI falls flat, but the Wachowskis and their crew show that visuals are their greatest strengths. When we get to the planet (which I don’t remember being named), we get to marvel at all the glorious looking characters, landscapes and sets that only masters of CGI-art can create. There’s also some decent humor. I didn’t expect it to have any, but there were a few bits of clever dialogue that put a smile on my face, at least when the movie wasn’t unintentionally funny.

Unfortunately, that’s all the good things I have to say about Jupiter Ascending. If you took away the stunning visuals, it was a pretty terrible movie. The worst part was probably the acting; everyone from top to bottom was bad. It was pretty disappointing to see Channing Tatum, who has come so far from his Step Up-days, fumble after a hot streak. But the worst was the Oscar-nominated Eddie Redmayne as the evil Balem. He was so bad in this movie that I now think his chances at winning Best Actor for The Theory of Everything might be all but torpedoed. I don’t blame the actors. Most of them are talented and have given good performances before. The blame lies with the Wachowskis, who have showed multiple times that they’re better at directing visuals than people. Moreover, the story was a complete mess. It was too long, too convoluted and filled with clichés. Even the action, which you’d expect the Wachowskis to be able to do, is stale and poorly directed.

I desperately wanted to like the Wachowskis. Bound and The Matrix were great movies, and I’m still not convinced that they were just flukes. But it seems that they lost their touch a long time ago. They had already failed with Speed Racer and Cloud Atlas, and now Jupiter Ascending is getting negative reviews and doing weak business. It’s going to take a lot to revive their careers, but that revival is looking increasingly unlikely.