You may have noticed two very large studio genre pictures, Jupiter Ascending and Seventh Son, squaring off at the megaplex this weekend. There’s a story to that.
See, Seventh Son — aka That Movie With Jeff Bridges And Julianne Moore Probably Agreed To Do So They Could Have Some Nice Dinners Together — was originally supposed to be released by Warner Bros. under a distribution deal with Legendary Pictures.
But then Legendary made nice with Universal in the summer of 2013, and Seventh Son disappeared from Warner’s Summer 2014 schedule and went onto Universal’s, where it bounced around for a while before landing in the Winter 2015 slot — which, as we know, does not speak too highly to its perceived quality.
Now, Jupiter Ascending was also set to open last summer, but Warner bumped the Wachowskis’ sci-fi effects bonanza to Winter 2015 at the last minute — supposedly because it just wasn’t ready. Now it’s opening against Seventh Son, and likely to smash it good. Seems kinda petty to me, but business is business, right?
Anyway, they screened opposite one another and I could only go see one of them … so I guess Jupiter Ascending came out on top there, too.
To the release slate!
The Backward Class: Madeleine Grant’s look at Indian teens whose college ambitions represent a huge break with their nation’s social structure won the Audience Award at Hot Docs last year — and deservedly so, according to Susan.
Dogs on the Inside: More promotional video than documentary, but there’s an inarguably positive message at the heart of this no-budget look at a program that pairs minimum-security convicts with dogs who need love and socialization as much as they do.
Jupiter Ascending: The first act of The Matrix meets the third reel of The Wizard of Oz with a soupcon of Brazil in the Wachowskis’ latest mega-epic, which tries to pack an elaborate feature-film trilogy into two occasionally thrilling, consistently ridiculous hours — and features a spectacularly ill-considered Eddie Redmayne performance.
Love, Rosie: Christian Ditter’s decades-spanning romance stars Lily Collins and Sam Claflin as two people who ought to be a couple, but can’t quite get it together. Glenn would prefer the movie not have happened, either.
Outcast: Nicolas Cage’s second “disillusioned Crusader tries to leave his past behind only to be drawn into a different kind of battle” picture is just as bad as his first one. And possibly worse, because this one has Hayden Christensen.
Seventh Son: Jeff Lebowski and Maude Lebowski (no relation) reunite — and square off — in Sergei Bodrov’s medieval fantasy epic whatsis, which also stars Ben Barnes and Alicia Vikander. So that’s a thing.
The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water: Rad finds the little yellow guy’s second big-screen venture unnecessary but entertaining, and I will defer to him because he has small children. I remain thoroughly gicked out by the “real-world” versions of the characters glimpsed in the trailer.
And there we are. My money’s on the Jupiter Ascending team casting a dark shadow over the Lebowski reunion, but you never know. Just don’t bother with Outcast, okay? It’s so, so bad.
“My money’s on the Jupiter Ascending team casting a dark shadow over the Lebowski reunion…”
Yeah, well that’s just, like, your opinion, man.
Sorry, couldn’t resist. Even if Jupiter Ascending ends up being all style over substance, the Wachowski’s give great style.