Upside Down

Oh well! It could’ve been so good! And nothing. I looked forward to it since the first trailer, for about a year, and I’m quite pissed off with the result. Upside Down has two good things: the core premise of two words lying opposite each other and the amazing visuals. The shots that show both worlds, especially in the scenes in the mountains, with snowy peaks upside and down below, and clouds rolling and the sun shining between them are a feast of the eyes. And that’s all I can praise. The film relies on the fact that it’s basically a fairytale, but it tries, very seriously, to work according to certain sci-fi rules. That allows it to do interesting things with gravitation, but the way it works with those rules is so frivolous that most of the time I was forced to think whether there isn’t some nonsense happening that is in breach of them. You can overlook that in a fantasy fairytale, but bugger me! If lay down some serious scientific rules, I should abide to them… But even that could be ignored if the relationship between the two protagonists was well written, but unfortunately, it isn’t. It’s a shallow pseudo-romance without any emotional effect. For most of it I was considering a third star (for the premise, the play with gravitation and the visuals), but the last 15 minutes, or the concentrated incompetence and short-sightedness of the script, convinced me that Upside Down wouldn’t get more than two stars from me. One of this year’s biggest disappointments. (20.12.2012)

It hasn’t happened to me in a long time that I would be enjoying a movie that is visually absolutely stunning, but the plot of which is incredibly silly. But it actually wouldn’t have been so silly if the director hadn’t introduced to me in the first five minutes how things worked in this world. After that, similarly to several other users here, I kept thinking about what was good and bad about the world. And at that point, I kept noticing silly details that I would normally never have noticed. In the end, I was flabbergasted and the ending didn’t help things either. But the movie does deserve your attention thanks to its amazing visual side. (04.01.2014)

Fighting gravity would appeal to just about chick, and here they pay around with mixing spit for her pleasure. It looks nice, but you get a smack upside the head from those twins that you end up forgetting what you were actually watching and just watch with your mouth open as a pretty interesting movie gets murdered. One star is for Jim Sturgess' beautiful eyes, the other two I don't even know what for. (03.01.2014)

Love resists the law... this time of gravity. The visual side is captivating, the story about the rich and the poor in an original setting. Laws don’t work the way we are used to, so who ever wants to spend almost two hours squabbling about whether or not the blood would rush to the hero’s head or that the fire is burning somewhat slowly and would go out during the first time climb into the upper world, can. Solanas sacrificed these details to allow him to tell a story which, apart from the slightly hurried finale, has no flaws. Both Kirsten Dunst and Jim Sturgess are well cast and know what is expected from them. Overall, it’s simply a well-made fairytale that takes place in an eye-pleasing world. (23.12.2012)

Kirsten Dunst hat noch nie viel mit Science-Fiction zu tun gehabt, vor Jahren synchronisierte sie nur die englische Version des Animationsfilms Kaena: Die Prophezeihung, und als Kind spielte sie in einer Folge von Raumschiff Enterprise: Das nächste Jahrhundert mit. Aber heute haben wir das recht unterhaltsame Science-Fiction-Melodram Upside Down, das nur zu existieren scheint, um all die Eye-Candy-Szenen mit der geliebten Kiki zu erleben. Die Existenz beider Welten ist eigentlich eine Metapher für die Hauptromanze, in der es um ein Paar geht, das miteinander interagiert, so wie es Aristophanes in Platons "Symposion" erzählt. (20.11.2015)

The characters are clearly outlined. Timothy Spall, although you will like him here, is simply a terribly positive character who experiences adversity, the couple in love rushes headlong into everything, although Adam still maintains enough sanity not to lose his brilliant invention. It's a shame, a big shame, that it's so schematic. If the differences between the two worlds were highlighted more, if the movie focused more on dramatics and less on forced beauty, the film would have a different, dare I say better, impact. Like with a blown Easter egg. Beautiful to look at, but there's nothing much underneath that beauty. (19.11.2013)