LET’S give thanks that Jupiter Jones (Mila Kunis), raised by her mum after thieves invaded their Moscow apartment and shot her dad, is nothing more than a creature of fantasy in this cosmic actioner written and directed by Andy and Lana Wachowski.

As a young adult, Jupiter and her mum clean apartments in New York. Then Wise (Channing Tatum) arrives on Earth to collect her and take her to a farm upstate en route to a faraway planet to fulfil her destiny – as queen of the universe where the Abrasax dynasty, nasty prince Balem (Eddie Redmayne) and pretty prince Titus (Douglas Booth), are competing for the throne.

Is this traditional rivalry between good and bad brothers? Or are they both rather bad? The film takes two hours to clarify that issue. On the side of the good guys is Wise’s former CO in the army, Stinger (Sean Bean). Balem has his eye on Earth, which is now ready for harvesting. A grim prospect!

Sci-fi movies, mostly short on science and long on fiction, long ago exhausted their ability to be fresh.

While “Jupiter Ascending” adheres to the same old good/bad conflict theme, it’s refreshingly different in not having come from a comic strip. Nonetheless, it’s rather derivative from some of the pioneering outer space movies – “Star Wars” and “Star Trek” in particular.

But its most agreeable aspect is its humour. I cannot tell if that’s deliberate or accidental. But two of the other four people at the screening found much hilarity to accompany mine.

“Jupiter Ascending” blazons its reported cost of $US176 million across the screen – production design, art direction, set decoration and special effects. Michael Giacchino’s musical score adds a fervid dimension to sequences where not much is happening among spectacular visuals.

In ABC TV’s recent “Human Universe” series, Prof Brian Cox concluded that it’s improbable that conditions on other planets can sustain life. I’ll go with him on that one.

At all cinemas