Jupiter Ascending

Mila Kunis and Channing Tatum's lives intersect when the fate of our earth comes into play in the cosmic battle for dominance between the Abraxas siblings, whose mother, and owner of the earth dies leaving it's fate in the balance.

Jupiter (Kunis) is unhappy in her monotonous and far from glamorous life of cleaning the homes of the wealthy with her mother and her aunt. Money is tight, and in order to buy a telescope akin to the one that her father died to protect before she was born, Jupiter decides to harvest her eggs, and this trip to the doctor will leave her life changed forever.

There are a number of separate parties gunning to get to Jupiter first, for their own personal gain, including Canine Wise (Tatum); A half human, half canine genetically engineered ex-soldier, sent to retrieve Jupiter. Initially hired to track her down his morals conflict with his obligations as he goes to extreme lengths to keep Jupiter safe.

Jupiter is more than in over her head in a world she has only just discovered, she doesn't understand the rules and she doesn't know what she can trust, all she knows is that she has to do what she can to save the only world she's ever known Earth.

Sounds exiting right?

Wrong.

Well yes you are right, but you are sorely mistaken as this film had a wealth of potential, and it disappointingly, but not unexpectedly, fell short. There were stunning galactic shots, out of this world costumes and some pretty amazing  fight sequences, not to mention hilarious one liners, But overall the premise of the film, which was essentially; the possibility of  Earth being harvested so that the rich could stay looking young,  left nothing to be desired. The film lacked momentum, it was rarely intriguing and finally ended on such a dull note there seemed to be no point in having started watching the film I the first place. Fair enough to Channing Tatum, but really Mila? We all expected better.

This films gets two unicorns as a consolation prize for Channing and Mila. Well done guys You Tried.... Well you showed up.

The Theory of Everything

This biographical film based on the memoir, Travelling To Infinity: My Life With Stephen by Jane Wilde Hawking, pictures the life, love, struggles and science of Professor Stephen Hawkins.

The story begins in 1963 where a young and carefree Stephen is in attendance at Cambridge where he is doing his doctorate in Astrophysics, and brushes off the concerns of his friends and professor on his lack of a thesis topic. 

A thesis topic strays further still from his mind when Stephen meets Jane, a fellow Cambridge student and a Christian, a subject that Stephen finds hard to comprehend as a scientist but does not let effect their budding relationship. Things go from zero to one hundred as they are one day sweethearts and the next married when Stephen is given two years to live. The film goes on to explore the struggles and the accomplishments Jane and Stephen go through during their 30 year marriage.

On the surface you may think that Eddie Redmayne did nothing more than an average job at playing Stephen Hawkins, but when you consider that he had to act as though he had a motor neuron disease, a sentiment that you never questioned during the course of the film you can do nothing more than applaud him for doing such a spectacular job.

Despite the interesting storyline, this film had nothing distinctively intriguing to it. This may sound a little harsh considering it was based on actual events and had to stay true to reality, but there were other aspects that the film could have focused on as it did begin to feel a little repeated  at certain points. 

Big Hero 6

In the city of San Fransokyo. technology is at its best and the possibilities are endless.

Brothers Hiro and Tadashi both have a talent for robotics, but whilst, older brother Tadashi uses his mind to help push boundaries and create in his lab, his younger brother Hiro circles the illegal robot fighting circuit, cockily hustling his opponents, with little regard for safety.

Cleverly steered by Tadashi, Hiro sees that he has the potential to be better, to challenge himself, and to change the world that they live in, and the way to do it is to attend his brothers university and work with the renowned Professor Callaghan. Sadly a freak accident changes everything when Tadashi is killed and Hiro is left feeling alone and adrift, keeping to himself and ignoring the attempts of his aunt and his brothers friends in cheering him up.

One day Hiro accidentally activates Beymax. Designed by Tadashi to give care to those in pain, Beymax is best described as the toddler aged love child of the Pilsbury dough man and a Nurse, he is sweet, non threatening and will do everything in his power to give his patient the best medical care possible, in this case Hiro. He convinces Beymax and his brothers friends that what he needs to heal is to find a mysterious man in a mask who he believes is linked to the accident that killed his brother. To properly equip for the battle ahead, Hiro does some tinkering and upgrades our loveable Beymax, and his brothers scientific friends, allowing them to use their skills to their advantage.

A quick shout out to the designers behind Beymax, the fact that a robot with two dots and a line for a face and a chubby balloon like exterior, can make me have so many emotions is genius.
This was an interesting angle on the Walt Disney Animation front, namely in terms of it's realism, especially when penned against its 53 predecessors, not that you are hearing any complaints from me. In all honesty, this film did everything right, from believable characters and developing story line. to lovable robot and a warm feeling all over as the screen went black and the credits began to roll, it was funny in unexpected ways and emotional in all the right ones.

In hindsight the message of the film telling kids that Science is Cool! was very subtly done and will hopefully pioneer the forefront for kids letting their imaginations run wild in the realms of reality, least they all suffer the same disappointment as most of us did on not receiving our Hogwarts letter, finally giving up hope as we sat our last A level exam.