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There are perhaps no two actors with more goodwill between them than Mila Kunis and Channing Tatum, stars (and star-crossed lovers) of the Wachowskis’ latest mega-scale sci-fi caper, Jupiter Ascending. Even so, the two might be the least interesting factors in this totally effing bonkers space opera, playing earthbound, toilet-scrubbing space-princess Jupiter Jones and half-albino wolf-man-mercenary Caine Wise. They act as serviceable leads — the stuff of textbook hero’s journey — in a plot of birthright, kidnapping, derring-do, and strong Oedipal overtones. Throw in Eddie Redmayne whisper-yelling his way through his role as the villainous eldest sibling of a greedy, ancient dynasty, and the plot plays like Lannisters In Space.

As expected, the Wachowskis are trying to explore some capital-B Big Ideas here, to varying success. Standard-issue is their indictment of consumerism. More interesting is the siblings’ return to Cloud Atlas territory, as they conjure up a fantastical genetic case for reincarnation.

But forget character, plot, and even meaning. Jupiter Ascending is a movie engineered for fun and thrills, and on those levels, it mostly works. The film’s main action centrepiece happens early on and involves a sweeping chase that weaves through the Chicago skyline. It is a wildly successful sequence of special effects choreography, more balletic than the typical city-levelling battle scene, with the directors keeping their attention trained on Caine and Jupiter as they alternately fall off of buildings, into spaceships, and out of each others’ reach. The effect on the viewer is deliriously stomach-dropping. The Wachowskis are clearly in their element as they toy with gravity, taking advantage of all planes offered to them (including, unnecessarily, 3D). It is curious, then, that most of the film’s later action sequences, set in the weightlessness of outer space, grow leaden and repetitive by the time we reach the zillionth blow-em-up escape scene.

For all the film’s flaws and convolutions, let’s raise a glass of Abrasax Youth Serum to Andy and Lana Wachowski, nerd saviours, for making an ambitious original-concept blockbuster in this dystopian age of the threequel. Even when the jokes don’t land or the scenes start to drag, Jupiter Ascending is a visually impressive space fairytale that’s plenty of fun. It is also the only movie you will see this year where a shirtless Channing Tatum stops up a battle wound with a menstrual pad and redefines action hero masculinity right then and there. Swoon.