Jupiter Ascending (2015)

I have a love/hate thing with the Wachowski siblings Andy and Lana (ne Larry). “Matrix”? One of the best action films ever. Sequels? Crap. “Cloud Atlas”? An epic too messy to land, but I loved the struggle. Now comes “Jupiter Ascending,” a sci-fi jumble of storyboards turned into overdone CGI fireworks that never spark. The Wachowskis think they have something as profound as “Dune” on their hands. Reality: This is nothing more than a “Flash Gordon” retread, complete with the space-man hero (Channing Tatum) crashing through a cathedral ceiling to save the damsel (Mina Kunis) from marrying some wicked creep. And it’s not even funny. Tatum’s hero is a half-man/half-dog soldier, while Kunis plays a janitor who is the reincarnated clone of a dead space queen. When Tatum’s hero tells Jones she *owns* Earth, literally, our gal gawks and wonders if he *loves* her. Is she 14? Mentally afflicted? Sean Bean sulks about, bored. Eddie Redmayne -– hot off “Theory of Everything” –- fly spits everywhere, over-acting. Nonsensical, edited to ribbons -– continuity errors abound -– and insanely overly complicated, I should have taken the blue pill. D

Ted (2012)

My wife has come home many times to find me watching the so-bad-it’s-brilliant 1980 sci-fi cheese-fest “Flash Gordon.” So I laughed to an embarrassing degree while watching “Ted,” the raunchy comedy about a 35-year-old man named John (Mark Wahlberg) who lives with his toking, swearing, fornicating stuffed teddy bear (voiced by “Family Guy” patriarch Seth McFarlane, who also directed and co-wrote) from childhood. Ted and John constantly watch “Flash,” always stoned, and that drives John’s successful live-in girlfriend (Mina Kunis) off the rails. It’s me or the bear, she says, in a film first. Other film firsts: A hilarious Sam Jones celebration, a scene where Wahlberg calls in a teddy-bear theft to 911, and a new classic bit where the former Marky Mark commits to a room-wrecker fistfight that rivals “Fight Club.” As with “Family Guy,” McFarlane tosses non-stop crude and cruel jokes and pop culture winks, and half stick, the other half miss, and all are juvenile. Yes, he skates the thin line of racist/sexist/homophobic, and satirizing the same. Your tolerance may bend. Mine did not. Best treat: Watching Wahlberg play opposite a fuzzy wuzzy CGI bear that wasn’t even there. B+