'Jupiter Ascending' astounds with awful goodness

To be honest, there’s no real way to rate or describe “Jupiter Ascending” (2015), the latest film written and directed by the Wachowski siblings. Perhaps most famous for the film “The Matrix” (1999), Lana and Andy Wachowski have now created the most overwrought, dazzling and entertaining bad film of all time. Seriously, in 10 years “Jupiter Ascending” will be a cult classic, with die-hard fans dressing up as main characters for conventions. It’s that level of bad-good that is so appealing; it is simultaneously terrible and the best thing to ever hit theaters.

The film stars Mila Kunis as Jupiter Jones, an illegal Russian immigrant who works as a cleaning lady with her mother and aunt. The audience knows that Jupiter hates her life, mainly because she says it multiple times. Somehow, seeing Mila Kunis cleaning a toilet is not the weirdest part of this movie (it would be quite difficult to decide what the weirdest part of the movie is). Jupiter finds out that she is actually the reincarnation of the matriarch of a powerful space dynasty when she is rescued from an alien attack by Caine Wise (Channing Tatum). Caine is a half-wolf space mercenary with unsettling blond hair, canine teeth and space roller blades. (Seriously, put the word “space” in front of anything you can think of, and “Jupiter Ascending” has it. Space jacuzzis. Space weddings. Space capitalism.)

To describe any more of the plot would take too long and give away spoilers, but honestly the narrative of the film doesn’t matter. The characters are what make the movie. Sean Bean’s there, for some reason, as a half-bee former space marine who’s depressed because he lost his animatronic wings. There are some unnamed mercenaries who dress like extras from the movie “Tron” and have serious wig issues.

But the best characters by far are the Abrasax siblings, the children of the woman supposedly reborn in Jupiter Jones. The Abrasaxes are essentially space corporate magnates, farming planets for resources and wealth: There’s Titus (Douglas Booth), the youngest sibling, who is sleaziness incarnate; Kalique (Tuppence Middleton), the middle sister; and Balem, played with extraordinary panache by Eddie Redmayne, the oldest Abrasax and possibly one of the best characters to have ever graced the silver screen.

So much could be written about Eddie Redmayne’s portrayal of Balem Abrasax. For one thing, he’s constantly wearing glittery black capes, often without a shirt. He only speaks in a whisper or a deranged scream, but his face remains perfectly expressionless, so you never know if he’s about to go off on a maniacal rampage. He’s essentially a glittery goth capitalist space vampire with a six-pack, and it’s glorious. Eddie Redmayne is nominated for an Academy Award for “The Theory of Everything,” but really he deserves it for this performance alone.

The Oedipus complex which possesses the three Abrasax siblings is almost a fourth character in and of itself. You haven’t experienced true creepiness until you’ve seen Eddie Redmayne call Mila Kunis “Mother” in a loving, caressing whisper,  which happens more than once.

There are also bees, ridiculous costumes, insane amounts of eyeliner, gratuitous shirtlessness and one memorable sequence which involves space bureaucracy and a gay android.

You’re thinking, “How could all of this possibly fit into one movie? How could this possibly be good?” But somehow it does, and somehow it’s phenomenal. Somehow it manages to be engaging and hilarious. Somehow you wish the movie was two hours longer so you could stay in the theater, watching this piece of glorious cinema late into the night.

“Jupiter Ascending” might not be worthy of five stars by “Is it actually a good movie?” standards, but it’s worthy of 27 stars in terms of “Is it actually the most fun you’ll have at a theater all year?” standards. You can’t truly understand until you’ve seen the movie and let all of the awful goodness soak in, but then you’ll understand why “Jupiter Ascending” is such a fantastic experience.