This film is utterly and completely absurd in every way. It throws everything imaginable at the screen, then grabs whatever is left and throws that too – along with any leftover reason and common sense they might have had.
I like it.
The Wachowski Brothers – now just billing themselves as “The Wachowskis” – rocketed to fame with The Matrix, but somehow have never managed to match that success. The sequels were…okay, but somehow it was better without them. Speed Racer was insane and silly (a great popcorn guilty pleasure) but no one watched it: and Cloud Atlas was pretentious and overblown – but not in a good way (when will anyone ever learn that the stirring speech that sparks that great revolution is almost impossibly hard to write? It takes fire, drive and a lot more than just someone moaning about how bad her life is).
So here we have the two once again in full Speed Racer form, turning out a wild and absurd Space Opera, with an absurdly complex plot involving power, royalty, space ships and bees. Yes, bees. Trust me, it all makes sense. Sort of.
At any rate, the plot (such as it is) involves a Cinderella girl named Jupiter Jones who suddenly discovers she owns the Earth. There are mercenaries sent to kill her, the official police, the Aegis, sent to help her, and (somewhat jarringly) the dense layers of the intergalactic government bureaucracy, who are there to complicate things (with a rather odd cameo by former Python, Terry Gilliam, in a set he must have had left over from Brazil).
And, of course, we have to have a romance, and it has to be as complicated and plot heavy and science-fictional as possible, so toss in a half-wolf guy who comes to kidnap her and sticks around to save her in as many overly dramatic ways as possible.
Only one thing to do: turn off your brain and settle back with a big bowl of popcorn. They don’t make them like this anymore…
Because no one in his right mind ever made them like that in the first place.
rivets on the poster 