DVD Upside Down
Run time: 109 min
Rating: 6.4
Genres: Drama | Fantasy | Romance
Director: Juan Solanas
Writers: Juan Solanas, Juan Solanas
Stars: Jim Sturgess, Kirsten Dunst, Timothy Spall
|
|
Storyline Adam is a seemingly ordinary guy in a very extraordinary universe. He lives humbly trying to make ends meet, but his romantic spirit holds on to the memory of a girl he loved once upon a time from another world, an inverted affluent world with its own gravity, directly above but beyond reach… a girl named Eden. Their childhood flirtation becomes an impossible love. But when he catches a glimpse of grownup Eden on television, nothing will get in the way of getting her back… Not even the law or science! Written by Onyx Films |
|
Plot Keywords: gravity, memory, childhood, corporation, popup card | |
Details: Country: Canada, France Release Date: 1 May 2013 (France) |
|
Box Office Budget: $60,000,000 (estimated) Opening Weekend: $28,722 (USA) (15 March 2013) Gross: $102,118 (USA) (5 April 2013) |
|
previous post
4 comments
This movie looked so promising based on it's trailer. Not to mention the visuals were absolutely gorgeous. It had this fantasy quality about it without looking fake; even though you absolutely know its green screen. Also, the plot premise was such an interesting idea; star-crossed lovers separated by the science of their universe. I was excited to watch it because I thought It'd have an "inception-like" quality. HOWEVER, I was horribly wrong.
The character development was just sort of…there. And no real relationship ever seemed to develop between the characters. It went from WE LOVE EACH OTHER to I DON'T KNOW YOU to WE LOVE EACH OTHER again without anything real happening. The romance has a bad back story and the sudden realizations were too flimsy. Adam was adorable in his endless attempts at trying to get to Eden. But thats all. They were so flat in the end and nothing interesting happened. Not to mention, the excitement factor was a bust and it was clichéd and awfully expressed in the end. It felt like I was watching a poem told with gorgeous figurative language, but lacking any substance, heart, or care. The movie needed a better plot, it needed more events, it needed more character development, and it needed a lot of polishing up. Since it's main point of drama was in the romance and even THAT was awfully put together, all in all, it was flop.
However, it was an okay watch and again, the visuals of such a disorientating world totally threw me off whack. For the next ten minutes after the movie, I felt like things should be floating upward and I should be upside down…it was weird but showed that I actually did get immersed into the world.
My recommendation? GET A BETTER WRITER
If there is one thing "Upside Down" has going for it, it's the visuals. Good God, the film is gorgeous to look at. We've seen hints of a similar visual style in the "Total Recall" remake and "Inception," but the filmmakers milk the unique look in "Upside Down" in as many frames as possible. At times, the visual puns can be a bit too obnoxious to the point it becomes stupid, but overall, they portray the "dual gravity" idea really creatively. Of course, with fantasy films like this that operate within its own set of rules, you usually have to ignore the implausibilities and just go along for the ride.
However, the story is a whole different matter. As the film opens to explain the world's rules through voice over rather than showing it on screen, I knew I was in for trouble. Within the first five minutes, exposition after exposition is thrown to the audience at such a quick pace it's almost impossible to keep up. It also doesn't help that the dialogue is downright embarrassing. With the film's over-reliance on narration, "Upside Down" leaves little time for its characters to develop which consequently makes the story as a whole feel contrived.
For example, the love interest that grows between the film's two main characters comes out of nowhere. Unfortunately, actors Jim Sturgess and Kirsten Dunst don't have the chemistry to sell their newfound romance authentically as well. Every story development feels fake and mechanical where it should feel natural. Furthermore, the film lacks any real climax, so the last 20 minutes where everything should build up to a resounding resolution, instead, just fizzles out to an anti-climatic, deus-ex-machina-like ending as if the story didn't know how else to end.
"Upside Down" has a great idea that should have been a lot better than it ended up being. However, it's obvious the filmmakers were more interested in focusing on the visuals than actually telling a good story. "Upside Down" proves that as awesome as visuals can be, it can't overshadow incompetent storytelling and a weak plot.
The film's setting is magnificently beautiful, there are a lot of stunning ideas and images and the main story is good enough to make the two-planet world look real. The one and the only one flaw of the film is that it pretends to be a sci-fi film rather than a fairy-tale in an unusual setting. If you judge it as a sci-fi you will find a lot of "how could it be" things that tear the imaginary world apart. The actors are great and it is fun to see Spall as a protagonist friend rather than foe. Both Sturges and Dunst are wonderful. So if you want to watch a sci-fi film you better avoid "Upside Down". This is a love story set in the fantasy world. No more, but no less.
Einstein once famously said, 'If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.' Nothing truer could be said about the writers of this movie as the long, drawn out explanation of the way 'dual gravity' works not only loses the viewer in less than five minutes after the title credits roll, but also shows how the writers don't understand their own physics later. For example: ever tried drinking water upside down? Well, this is exactly what the main characters do as a fad in a club. Mass has no effect in some shots, but is critical to others.
A crude ticking clock device is employed whereby matter from one world will start to burn after some time in the other. Humans are exempt from this, yet every time Adam ventures into the upper world, the effect is used as a cheap gag rather than anything substantial to drive the plot along.
The Evil Corporation's building linking the two worlds together is laughable, and instantly reminded me of 'The Fall' tunnel in 'Total Recall'. The middle level is where both gravity fields meet, but rather than being canceled out resulting in a zero gravity situation, we have the ludicrous image of a split office where the superior 'uppers' work on the ceiling and pass briefs and office supplies 'down' to their 'lower world' people.
The Evil Corporation also has this highly valuable anti-matter that floats in bottom-world but sinks in top-world. It is supposedly so valuable that it is tightly controlled to avoid the 'lower' employees stealing any. In a move totally unexplained, our hero is able to stock-pile about 80 pounds of the stuff and use it to walk around the upper city unchecked.
The editing was terrible. Nothing caused any sense of urgency or suspense. During a chase scene, the hero is edited to safety, and later once his method for entering the upper world is revealed he is just edited there.
The acting and characterization were awful. The male lead takes his style from the Shia LeBouf School of stuttering stupidity. He doesn't tell his love interest who he is for absolutely no reason other than to drag out the movie; telling her who he was before making a mission to see her would have been the logical thing. Dunst's character has amnesia (seriously?!) which may be unintentionally emphasized by the way she says her name.. every.. time. 'I'm Eden… Moore.' There was also no clear antagonist, just a poorly explained 'system' that somehow messed up the two characters' lives. Again, absolutely no suspense is created by this aspect – we can't force ourselves to care about these two fools.
The only redeeming feature was the stunning visuals. The world looked really great, but not nearly enough to raise itself out of the clichéd and derivative muck that holds this movie back. Elements borrowed from Total Recall, In Time and The Fountain ensure that it struggles to find its own definitive identity; a crappy movie made in a laboratory from the rotting and discarded parts of other crappy movies.
To conclude, both physicists and lovers of great film will be united in their screams of outrage and apoplectic spasms brought on by their utter disbelief of how this film tramples roughshod over both disciplines. Avoid this movie.