Featuring The Voices Of: Jack Corbett, Grace Kuhlenschmidt, Elsie Fisher, Janeane Garofalo, Miya Folick, Julio Torres, Sarah Sherman

Written and Directed By: Julian Glander

Release Year: 2025

Runtime: 90 minutes

There is no available audio description for this title.

What Is it?: An animated coming of age story featuring a group of friends and their various youthful shenanigans. one of them is trying desperately through food delivery services to get $5,000. But, in addition to getting money, the friends also find a creature that escaped a local lab, and maybe they want it back?

What Works: It’s tough to be representational as a blind film critic and say that there’s anything worth diving into with boys Go To Jupiter, but if you’re in to offbeat coming of age stories, you could do worse. Plus, the added commentary on our gig reliant economy is a fresh perspective. in one of the best gags in the film, a man who orders his food, is also too lazy to chew it. So, in order to earn an extra buck… you get it.

But it says something not just about the humor, or what degradation people in gig economies are willing to put themselves through, but also those of us who are too lazy to go get the things so we pay others to do it. In some cases, the services are nice. Uber certainly makes my life as someone who can’t drive better, and I’m guilty of using Instacart, since a trip to the grocery store would take me… a long time. Like, a really long time. Then I’d still have to use a gig economy worker to transport me home. But, a lot of it is sheer laziness, and it is kind of causing the collapse of society, and we can’t figure out how to course correct.

What Doesn’t Work: I’m still blind. so as clever as the script is, it is still animated. it is still an intentional visual style. One would argue film is a visual medium in its entirety, but I’d argue that sometimes we shoot things easier and less reliant on visual elements. some movies that are truly dialogue driven, with limited locations, can be consumed almost like an old fashioned radio play, and some documentaries are just a hop, skip, and a jump from being a podcast. Here, there’s a reason the story has chosen animation over casting young actors, and I’m guessing the style comes through for sighted individuals, but not blind. I’m less angry about it simply because this is an independently financed feature, and not something irresponsible like Disney pushing out more non-audio described content.

But, as a run down, I never know what any of the locations look like, what the characters look like, what the creature looked like, or even what style of animation this is. I’m essentially grading entirely based on the sheer originality and quality of the screenplay, and the voice actors ability to land the performances, with a dash of score and sound design thrown in. Is it enough?

The Audio Description: Last year, Flow paid for an Oscar campaign before paying for accessibility, which denied blind audiences the opportunity to see it in theaters. While I don’t see this winning an Oscar, we did just have a ceremony where the Academy Award winner for Best Director, sean Baker, got on stage and used his speeches as a platform to chastise those of us who watch films more at home than at the theaters. I’ve long wanted to have that conversation with Baker, because there’s a section of the audience that is stuck at the behest of distributors and their willingness to add audio description, as well as whether the equipment actually works. Even if Boys Go To Jupiter gained audio description, which it still should, it won’t be for its theatrical release. it will be like Flow all over again, and Sean Baker will continue to stew over butts not in seats.

Why You Might Like it: you can see, or you love quirky coming of age stories.

Why you Might Not Like it: you’re blind and wild horses couldn’t make you watch a film without audio description.

Final thoughts: Surprise. I’m leaning positive. While I’ve reviewed several films recently without audio description and gone rotten, this one was just quirky enough, and unique enough to scoot across the positive line. i enjoyed myself more than not, but I likely would have enjoyed this even more if I knew all of what was going on, and not just part of it.

Fresh: 6.5/10