SNAPSHOT
Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) was born under a night sky, with signs predicting that she was destined for great things. Now grown, Jupiter dreams of the stars but wakes up to the cold reality of a job cleaning toilets and an endless run of bad breaks. Only when Caine (Channing Tatum), a genetically engineered ex-military hunter, arrives on Earth to track her down does Jupiter begin to glimpse the fate that has been waiting for her all along – her genetic signature marks her as next in line for an extraordinary inheritance that could alter the balance of the cosmos. (official synopsis via screenrant.com)
Who doesn’t love a good rags-to-riches story?
There is something utterly beguiling about a nobody at the trash end of destiny suddenly finding themselves in a scenario that is equal parts Cinderella/Pretty Woman meets Star Wars with a side order of Matrix, their nothing life transformed beyond anything they could conceive.
Although judging by the official synopsis, it appears that Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis) suspects there might something more to her life than filthy and banal janitorial duties but faced with the cold, hard hand of destiny clutching at her throat at every turn had no choice, acquiesces to the idea that this is life in all its poorly realised form.
But fear not! Into this joyless opera of the grindingly everyday, comes a genetically-modifed half-wolf, half-albino warrior called Caine (Channing Tatum, he of the rather fetchingly exotic prosthetics below) and hey presto!
Jupiter Jones finds her life is not all toilets and brushes and mopping, that she is in fact the one who could bring about the downfall of the current evil ruler of the cosmos, the menacing Queen of the Universe who will, naturally enough, stop ay nothing to rid herself of the grave threat that Jupiter poses.
It’s the latest imaginative tale from the Wachowskis, who utterly reset the clock on sci fi and fantasy films in 1999 with the breathtakingly original first Matrix film, which set the benchmark, look and style for a host of genre-similar films that followed in its astonishingly successful wake.
Granted they fumbled the filmmaking ball with the near unwatchable second and third movies in the trilogy, which seemed to prioritise style over substance, but returned to form with 2013’s Cloud Atlas, which reaffirmed that when they’re at their best, there are few who can match their joining together of compelling storytelling and arresting visuals.
And from the looks of the trailer, they have triumphed once again although of course we won’t know for sure until 18 July 2014 in USA or 24 July 2014 in Australia when it officially hits theatres and all is revealed.
For now at least, much like Jupiter herself, I am going to look to the stars and hope for the best rather look into the toilet of Matrixes past.