Julianne Moore and Eddie Redmayne probably wish their new movies were coming out after awards season. But they’re both a scream in Seventh Son and Jupiter Ascending.
Julianne Moore as Mother Malkin in Seventh Son
Legendary Pictures/Universal Pictures
Eddie Redmayne as Balem Abrasax in Jupiter Ascending
Warner Bros.
Eddie Redmayne and Julianne Moore are this year's Oscar favorites for a pair of performances in which they recreate what it's like to be in the grip of devastating diseases. In The Theory of Everything, Redmayne plays the famous theoretical physicist Stephen Hawking through different stages of his physical deterioration due to ALS, showing impressive control and precision. In Still Alice, Moore portrays a brilliant linguistics professor and mother of three grown children who finds her memory, then her awareness, then her very identity slipping away because of early-onset Alzheimer's.
They're both nuanced, tasteful performances from drama's classiest redheads, which is why there's something especially delightful about seeing the same pair camping things up so spectacularly in a pair of doomed fantasy and sci-fi spectaculars coming out this week. As far as Academy Awards campaigns go, Redmayne and Moore would probably have preferred their respective turns as the villains in Jupiter Ascending and Seventh Son not see the light until after the Oscars. It's not like anyone's been in much of a hurry before — both films arrive in theaters having already been subject to major delays. Jupiter Ascending was pushed from July of last year to February of this one, while Seventh Son was originally slated to open in theaters back in 2013.
But them's the breaks, and this vamping from both Redmayne and Moore is a vivid reminder that, despite what the industry pretends this time of year, Hollywood does not exist entirely on exquisitely rendered suffering, and thank god. Jupiter Ascending is a beautiful, sometimes brilliant mess and Seventh Son's a garbled, nonsensical helping of generic fantasy soup, but Redmayne and Moore are both tremendous fun as the films' villains, cinched into elaborately regal goth outfits and chewing scenery with verve admirably equal to that with which they approach their more serious work.
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