Critic Reviews

The juxtaposition of supernatural thriller tropes and urgent socio-political issues in Kornél Mundruczó’s latest movie — an original take on the superhero origin story set to the backdrop of the refugee crisis — might prove a delicate one for some viewers to take. Those unperturbed, however, should find much to relish in Jupiter’s Moon.

Jupiter's Moon is a highly ambitious and thoroughly entertaining trip and if the politics is more backdrop than subtext, what remains is compelling and occasionally beautiful enough for you to enjoy the flight.

It is a very odd, singular piece of work: not the visionary masterpiece it assumes itself to be and muddled in its effects and ideas. But certainly bold. It loses altitude yet never becomes earthbound.

A film with some real stunning visual highlights but a narrative throughline that feels patchy and unbalanced.

An ambitious, thematically overstuffed drama that’s both a crackling action-thriller and a ponderous political commentary.

It is an outrageously ambitious and intermittently staggering piece of work, though it completely lacks the kind of discipline or focus that might have made its themes or images really stick.

The sheer volume of potential readings eventually stalls on reductive soundbites about a faithless generation, but the set-pieces sizzle with style.

Jupiter’s Moon is no simple story of escape, in part because Mundruczó’s script (co-written with Kata Wéber) has no real idea where it’s going.

As visually arresting as Kornél Mundruczó’s latest film Jupiter’s Moon undoubtedly is, it remains too intellectually imprisoned within its own allegorical confines to make a truly positive impact.

This serious-minded, ambitious oddity shoots for the moon of a far-off planet, but it really only finds the grace it’s looking for in its magnificent supple camerawork.