Boys Go to Jupiter
First screened in December 2025
Director: Julian Glander. Voice Cast: Jack Corbett, Maya Folick, Janeane Garofalo, Grace Kuhlenschmidt, Elsie Fisher, J.R. Phillips, Demi Adejuyigbe, Cole Escola, Chris Fleming, Tavi Gevinson, Joe Pera, River L. Ramirez, Sarah Sherman, Julio Torres, Eva Victor, Max Wittert. Screenplay: Julian Glander. In Brief:
Elaborately designed alternate reality but no rich world-building. Garish. Shrill. Badly voiced. I could go on.
VOR:③
I concede the uniqueness of what Glander achieved on free software, albeit in tony company. But we've seen better already, and more will come.
I will gladly grant that we need more movies that imagine entirely different idioms, voices, modes, and techniques for being a movie. But I rush to add that I would be so frustrated and so sad if more movies turned into whatever Boys Go to Jupiter is. Sort of like Jane Schoenbrun making an animated Gumby film while on acid. Or Miranda July (who is actually thanked in the credits) agreeing to write, direct, and produce a special episode of Bluey as long as she can do it as a drably and yet nonsensically anticapitalist musical. Or just "6-7" for 86 minutes.
I mean, by all means, go off, weirdo laptop-animation impresario Julian Glander! Letterboxd suggests you and your movie have found the droids you were seeking. Party down, Jupiter Boys of all genders, whether in the empty swimming pool or the mutant-fruit laboratory or the crawlspace miles beneath the Earth, or whatever factory you've found for the inhuman mixing of already-shrill character voices and for the unceasing production of putrid, eye-searing colors. (The fuzzy-font lemon yellow credits against equally bright pink and turquoise backdrops were an especially "nice" touch.) I fully get that this film and filmmaker may be laying a path toward some exciting discoveries and reinventions, and that the 3D effects are lost in the conversion to streaming, where I saw this. I'd also love to be persuaded more by whatever's down the road. But I personally am not accepting any more applications for Julian Glander movies at this time. Grade:D+
