Posts Tagged ‘Mila Kunis’

Jupiter Ascending

Director: Andy & Lana Wachovski

Cast: Mila Kunis, Channing Tatum, Eddie Redmayne, Douglas Booth, Gugu Mbatha-Raw, Sean Bean, Tuppence Middleton, Maria Doyle Kennedy, James D’Arcy, Tim Pigott-Smith

Creators of the marvellous Matrix trilogy and the super confusing reincarnation fantasy Cloud Atlas, The Wachowski’s have returned to their Sci-Fi roots in the deeply ambitious yet slightly far-fetched cinematic offering Jupiter Ascending.

Despite the fabulous visuals and assembling a cast of all the latest hot young stars for Jupiter Ascending including Mila Kunis (Black Swan), Channing Tatum (Foxcatcher) and Eddie Redmayne (Les Miserables), the narrative is so crammed with infinite details paying homage to David Lynch’s film Dune as well as Robocop, Star Wars and Signs that it suffers from the weight of its own ambition.

Jupiter Ascending focuses on a Russian immigrant to America aptly named Jupiter who is first introduced as a charlady cleaning toilets in Chicago and the next minute is being rescued from insidious almost invisible aliens by a hunky skyjacker named Caine Wise, gorgeously played by Channing Tatum who spends most of the film with his shirt off. Wise’s DNA has been spliced with that of a Wolf so he is a Lycantant.

Jupiter played by the pouty but gorgeous Mila Kunis who soon learns that her DNA is a re-occurrence of a powerful Queen who once headed up a rather enigmatic and powerful space dynasty, known as the Abrasax who destroy planets and suck the lifeblood out of their inhabitants. Charming stuff, not to mention, it is revealed as the story unfolds that humans are only reaching the eve of the genetic revolution.

The Queen of the Universe who died recently has three rather malevolent offspring the rather camp and wicked Balem, a fabulous turn by Redmayne, his sister Kalique played by Tuppence Middleton who is searching for immortality and the younger brother Titus wonderfully played by Douglas Booth who in a weird Oedipal way wants to marry the reincarnation of his mother, Jupiter Jones so that he can claim his share of the intergalactic inheritance. The wedding sequence between Titus and Jupiter is a production designer’s wet dream, gorgeous, lavish and filled with spectacle.

Naturally chemistry develops between the exotic Lycsantant, Wise and Jupiter Jones who is thrust from her mundane existence of servitude and elevated to the status of a celestial queen who has to wrangle with three devious offspring that are all out to distinguish her existence in various ways. This is like a Space Opera on acid, the visuals are fabulous, the storyline completely illogical, yet Jupiter Ascending is still riveting to watch but is not in the same league of such brilliant Sci-Fi films as Snowpiercer, Star Wars and the Ridley Scott’s classic Blade Runner.

Jupiter Ascending despite the fantastic special effects suffers the fatal premise that if you are going to introduce viewers to such a gorgeous and extra-terrestrial universe, then the heroine should not be cleaning toilets in downtown Chicago. At least in Star Wars, Princess Leia never had to deal with such lowly tasks and her plight remained infinitely more profound under the threat of Darth Vader’s Deathstar.

As a friend who saw the film with me commented so aptly, Jupiter Ascending should have been broken down into three films with more back story written into the narrative so that at least the plight of this Queen of the Universe could take on a more historic turn especially in her dealings with each of the nefarious Abrasax clan.

That said, Jupiter Ascending is fabulous to watch, but could have been edited better and more coherently written so that at least Jupiter’s circular odyssey to space and back would be plausible especially as the film started off so promisingly in Russia with her father gazing at the planet Jupiter from the banks of the Neva river in St Petersburg.

Watch out for Gugu Mbatha-Raw (Belle) with big ears as Famulus and an underutilized Sean Bean as Stinger Apini last seen in the Game of Thrones series in brief cameos and Maria Doyle Kennedy (The Tudors) as Jupiter’s mother Aleksa. Jupiter Ascending is recommended viewing only for serious sci-fi fans and those that truly want to escape earth in a steam-punk drug fueled fashion…

Oz, the Great and Powerful

Sam Raimi, the director of the original Spiderman trilogy, has reinvented the great tale of the 1939 Judy Garland classic The Wizard of OZ in his unique, but tepid version in Oz, the Great and Powerful starring James Franco (Milk, 127 Hours) as the self-infatuated and egotistical conman wizard Oz. The film’s opening sequence is truly hilarious, shot in black and white and set in a mid-Western state fair in Kansas in 1905, where Oz, also known as Oscar Diggs poses as a Wizard and puts on a less than illustrious show to try and dazzle the conservative rural community of this Mid-Western American state. Assisted with a comic glee by Frank played by the underutilized Zach Braff, Oz is soon wooing audiences into all sorts of illusions and magic tricks, some of which fall short of magnificence.

However in an attempt to escape the county fair strongman, Oz gets caught up on a balloon in a tornado as one does in Kansas and soon finds himself transported to the radiant and colourful land of Oz where he meets the bewitching Theodora, underplayed by the smouldering Mila Kunis (Black Swan) who soon takes Oz on the yellow brick road to meet her supposedly evil sister Evanora, played with malicious panache by Oscar Winner Rachel Weisz (The Fountain, The Constant Gardiner).

Theodora

Evanora upon showing Oz the mountains of gold stored in the Emerald city soon cons him into tracking down the Wicked Witch in a bid to steal her magic wand. Oz journeys to the dark forest along with a china girl and a pet flying monkey and tracks down the supposed evil witch who turns out to be Glinda the Good, beautifully played by Michelle Williams (My Week with Marilyn, Blue Valentine), who obviously took the role so that her daughter Mathilda could see one of her movies. The rest of Oz, the Great and Powerful is light, candied entertainment with the occasional witty line, but really lacking in the true imaginative retelling found in Tim Burton’s brilliant Alice in Wonderland or in the dark magic realism of Guillermo del Toro’s Pan’s Labyrinth.

Glinda complete with shiny heels and a wand!

Even the flying baboons are not that scary. Raimi who is renowned for making brilliant horror films (Drag Me to Hell and The Evil Dead), find himself caught up in the world of Oz without the necessary desire to make the fantasy vaguely fascinatingly edgy, but rather predictable and very tame. The best lines in the film are taken by Williams and Weisz who know how to play sassy witches, trying to compete for the attentions of the goofy Wizard, slightly overplayed by Franco.

Oz the Great and Powerful will definitely appeal to younger viewers and lacks some of the edginess seen in some of the more recent revisionist fairytale cinematic offerings. My only thought throughout this version was where the heck was Dorothy? She was stuck in celluloid legacy as Judy Garland in the MGM original.

Dorothy had a new meaning after this film!

The only one with sparkling shoes was Glinda the Good, which audiences briefly caught a glimpse in the last few scenes of the film. Fascinating and fabulous as it is, like the Oz’s final projected appearance in the Emerald City, much of the film is filled with hot air, but is nevertheless entertaining in parts.

Friends with Benefits

A complicated relationship

From LA to the Big Apple, Friends with Benefits is a quirky 21^st century comedy which pokes fun at romantic comedies but ultimately succumbs to the formula which has made this genre so popular. Mila Kunis from Black Swan is utterly delightful as the street savvy New York head hunter for the Olive Branch Recruitment agency who organizes a job for Dylan Harper played with his usual boyish charm by Justin Timberlake seen in The Social Network, arriving fresh off the plane from LA as art director for GQ. While Timberlake is coming into his own as an actor and is appearing in many more films, it is certainly Kunis who steals the show in this 21^st century digitized urban jungle of the New York magazine industry. The on screen chemistry is brilliant between Kunis and Timberlake helped by a witty, sometimes rude but very direct script.

As Timberlake and Kunis become good friends in NYC, they decide to play tennis in other words have sex, hence the friendship with a nudge and wink on the side. Friends with Benefits mid way through the film was giving the impression that it was just about its two leading stars, then the scriptwriters bring in Kunis’s dilly mother played by A-class character actress Patricia Clarkson and Timberlake’s father, played by the equally talented Richard Jenkins from Eat, Pray, Love and The Visitor.

New York and LA feature as cities with their own distinct character, with New York outshining in terms of the most attractive destination. Friends with Benefits features some wonderful scenes including a flash mob dance sequence in Times Square, a great cameo by Woody Harrelson as the gay sports editor for GQ and gorgeous shots of the Big Apple’s skyline and a wonderfully comic scene at the Hollywood sign in Los Angeles. Besides the friendship, this is sex in both cities with Timberlake and Kunis doing a fine job at turning the romantic comedy drama literally upside down, with loads of filmic and digital references for the internet generation. Worth watching!

Black Swan

Director: Darren Aronofsky

Cast: Natalie Portman, Mila Kunis, Barbara Hershey, Vincent Cassel, Winona Ryder, Sebastian Stan, Patrick Heusinger

Darren Aronofsky’s masterpiece is a taut psychological thriller about a prima ballerina who delves into her dark side, so she can perform the complex role of the Swan Queen in Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake.  Natalie Portman gives a stunning and frenzied performance as Nina Sayers. As well as the physical demands of playing the lead Ballerina in Swan Lake, Nina is trapped in a claustrophobic and co-dependent relationship with her mother, a wonderfully obsessive performance by Barbara Hershey (Portrait of a Lady).

Whilst rehearsing for the final act, the ballet master a seductive and sadistic Thomas played with relish by Vincent Cassel, taunts Nina and reproaches her continually for not bringing out her dark qualities to dance the antithesis of the White Swan, the Black Swan. The fact that Nina is prone to episodes of self-mutilation smothered by her overbearing mother and is generally an exceptional sexually frustrated and fragile young woman who uses dancing to quench her repressive state, makes Black Swan a highly intoxicating psycho sexual thriller set in the bitchy and uncompromising world of ballet.

Aronofsky always has his central characters stripped away to the vicious core, from The Wrestler, where in a break-out performance by Mickey Rourke as a washed up Trailer Park, drug-addicted wrestler angling for a comeback to heroin addicts played by Jennifer Connelly and Jared Leto in Coney Island, who resort to extreme methods for their drugs, as detailed in the inventive and shockingly brutal Requiem for a Dream.

Black Swan is no exception, as Portman gives a ground breaking performance of a Ballerina rapidly losing her grip on reality, delving deeper into her own troubled and shattered psychosis to satisfy the dreams of an obsessed mother who compromised her own stage success.

Black Swan is about the rigours of Ballet training along with the mental deterioration of a young woman driven beyond the edge of sanity, surrounded by a gallery of heinous characters from an overbearing mother, a cruel ballet instructor and a tempting rival, Lily played with an unforgiving relish by Milas Kunis slyly plotting to derail Nina’s debut as the Swan Queen.

This is a classic psychological thriller, from the drab and daunting world of the dance studios, filled with giant mirrors reflecting Nina’s inner torment to the dingy apartment shared with her mother, an entire film bathed in black and white with only the occasional gashes of blood to break the diametric colour palette. Watch out for a great cameo performance by Winona Ryder as the broken ballerina Beth who declines as savagely as Nina’s star rises dramatically. Black Swan is a debut etched in blood and director Aronofsky, like in The Wrestler and Requiem for Dream shows this grueling Ballet world in its entire stripped down depravity, with obsessive dancers driven and searching for a depreciating gratification. A far cry from the graceful triumph associated with Ballet exemplified in such films as The Company and Mao’s Last Dancer.