An ambitious original sci-fi project from the Wachowskis was bound to be a big hit or an entertaining failure.

What’s It About? When ordinary girl Jupiter Jones discovers that she is the heiress to the Queen of Earth, she and her new bodyguard Caine must travel across the universe and fend off deadly foes in order to claim her birthright.

STRAIGHT UP: A beautiful disaster, sure to be an ironic cult classic. 7/10

What I Liked

High-concept sci-fi worldbuilding – Ms. Jones’ quest to inherit the Earth is revealed to be part of a universe-spanning game of thrones, where galactic dynasts bargain for political and economic power using human lives and even whole planets as commodities. The sense of scale this lends to the film is staggering, and it’s a credit to the directors for finding ways to communicate and develop such a grandiose concept within the screenplay.

Breathtaking art direction – The artists working on this film went nuts designing anything they could imagine. Towering golden starships, shape-shifting power suits, dragon-men, werewolf-angels, and more combine in a fantastically bizarre and colorful setting.

Mila Kunis as Jupiter Jones – Mila Kunis is a good actress, and she tries so hard to mold Jupiter into a likable character and a good audience surrogate. That she doesn’t quite make it there is due entirely to things beyond her control.

Gravity boots – Caine’s signature equipment is so cool that “has gravity boots” becomes his most important (also: only) character trait. They’re on display during almost all of the movie’s cool action moments.

What I Disliked

Uncanny valley cinematography – As stunning as everything looks in static shots and slow pans, an over-reliance on painfully obvious CGI and green-screen effects during action scenes hurts the overall aesthetic. Too often, the experience is more like watching a video game cutscene instead of actors on camera.

Incomprehensible action sequences – The Wachowskis have fallen a long way since the days of The Matrix. Action scenes in Jupiter Ascending are so hyperkinetic and so full of particle effects and flying shrapnel that the overall effect is like filming marbles in a blender.

Terrible dialogue – I strongly suspect that some of these lines were not read aloud until the final filming. What else could explain Stinger talking about how bees can naturally detect royalty? (“You’ve never been stung by a bee, right? That means you were born to be a ruler.”) How else could an offhand remark like “I love dogs” lead into a gushing monologue that left me seriously wondering whether Jupiter had canine erotica saved somewhere on her computer?

No time to breathe – The story progresses at a breakneck pace – I was just barely able to keep up with all of the new characters, places, and plot twists being thrown around. A few minutes of introspection would have really helped to ground the narrative and add much-needed depth to the characters.

It’s not love – Mila Kunis and Channing Tatum have the worst romantic chemistry of any onscreen pair I’ve seen since I started writing reviews.

Jupiter’s contrived stupidity – Towards the end of the film, Jupiter seems to make decisions for no reason other than the plot demanding it. In one scene, Jupiter and Caine let a former ally walk away at gunpoint after he betrayed and nearly killed both of them; later, they talk about how he’s going to pay for it, as though the perfect opportunity hadn’t already passed them by. In another, Jupiter agrees to give up the title to Earth – and her only leverage – to her nemesis, Balem, in order to protect her family… who live on Earth… which Balem just announced his plans to destroy as soon as he got his hands on it. Nobody looks good when scenes like these are allowed to happen.

Eddie Redmayne as Balem Abrasax – There’s a kind of scenery-chewing arch-villainy that comes across as an extension of the actor’s natural personality, and another kind that comes across as awkward and rehearsed. Redmayne’s performance feels more like the latter to me.

CLOSING THOUGHT: Giving the Wachowskis a big budget and creative freedom in 2015 is not unlike handing a 14-year-old the keys to a Corvette. In either case, someone gets to have a lot of fun, but the result is always a big, expensive mess. Jupiter Ascending is not a good movie. Its script, characterization, and cinematography are all disastrous; seemingly all that separates this film from a SyFy original production are a few hundred million dollars’ worth of visual effects. That said, just as some of those SyFy pictures have a kind of awkward charm, so does Jupiter Ascending. There’s a spark of genuine inspiration under the surface that prevents it from being unwatchable and makes up for some of its many, many failures. It’s uncharacteristic of me to give such a favorable score to such a technically poor film, but I enjoyed the hell out of Jupiter Ascending. Come at me.