User reviews

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

Upside Down creates a fascinating universe beyond our imagination. It is so amazing, it could have been something groundbreaking. The story is a romance that is suppose to defy gravity. It starts with a great promise and many imaginative ideas were featured. Unfortunately, the journey suffers incoherence and leaves several unsettled details. It tries to tell a deeper meaning about love but none of it worked because of its terribly underdeveloped plot and awful romance. It could have at least given some sense to their love but it doesn't provide much exploration to their relationship. The visuals are undeniably breathtaking but the plot gets the opposite which results a story that fails to be compelling.

The idea is wonderful. Who could imagine a world like that? It may be scientifically unbelievable but it doesn't matter. As long as it has a substantial story. Sadly, that story is unable to achieve its message. Even if it's quite gripping, the film calls for something better. The central plot is about a man who risks everything to get his love back. The first and second act really shows a lot of intrigue to the premise but falters when it goes through the rest. The biggest problem is probably the romance. It is poorly portrayed. It's hard to understand why do they love each other. Yeah, they had a childhood together and they are good looking but what else? That's almost the only thing we knew about them because every time when it stumbles to their relationship, it becomes a montage of inaudible chatter thus never really get to know them more. Even the talents couldn't save their love. Jim Sturgess is always charming as a lover boy. He gets a lot of things to do in most vital parts but only did little to the romance. Same goes to Kristen Dunst, except she is mostly underused. In other cast, Timothy Spall appears as an older version of cliché best friend roles in romantic comedies.

It also leaves some unanswered questions in the end but that ending chooses forget almost everything from those questions. Despite of the story's inconsistency, the visuals are the landmark here. It is a brilliantly designed world that can be both trippy and fascinating. Mashing several styles like steampunk and typical futuristic details. Much magnificent is when it take turns between the aspects of the two worlds. There are two sequences that can be goosebumps worthy. These portraits are so gorgeous, it is best to see in cinema. It would still be worth watching if you're one of those people who doesn't care about the story even if its flaws are inevitable, but it still deserves something better.

Upside Down is visually breathtaking but it didn't go beyond that. The romance is beyond bland and it spends most of the time doing stuff that achieved so little to the plot. When I said the romance is beyond bland I mean it has no personality, no depth, no meaning. It's pretty vague. This likely proves that even the most stunning visuals cannot bring justice to a problematic story. It's disappointing because it wastes the potential of the visuals and the first half. Instead of being compelling, it rather shows how beautiful the two's relationship is with a grand scale universe in the background. Aside of the love story, the context between the two worlds are intriguing but there is nothing else about it besides of what it was explained which it isn't enough. It still has its merits. In a nutshell, the film itself is like the two worlds. The visuals are on the top, and the rest are on the bottom. Make sense?

This film is a love story set in a world where there are two worlds separated by different gravities.

On the surface, "Upside Down" is about a man from down below falling in love with a woman from the world above. In reality, the message is so profound, as it describes class and societal segregation. It shows how the less privileged (the world below) are separated from the privileged (the world above), and the upward social movement is impossible. People from one world pretend he is from another but in vain. People's hopes for a better life are shattered by societal limits. This difficult struggle is happening everyday in the world, where people in a country wants to move higher, or people wanting to move to another better off country in search for a better life. We don't normally think about this, but "Upside Down" brings such a problem to the foreground of the consciousness in a way that stimulates thoughts.

Visuals in "Upside Down" is stunning. From the sombre colour schemes down below, to the beautiful lights above; from the macabre buildings below to the majestic buildings above, every scene is beautifully crafted and presented in a surreal manner. Just the visuals alone make "Upside Down" worth watching. The soundtrack is excellent as well, it adds to the beauty of the scenes.

I enjoyed "Upside Down" a lot. I hope it will reach a wider audience.

The story behind the movie is interesting, it was a pleasure watching. The special effects and imagery as a whole are astonishing, although at certain times "unfinished", "half-rendered". The actors fit well in the story, and it's needless to say they performed good.

Still, I was a bit disappointed when I discovered that at this time the movie is still on post-production and what I've seen was a not a final version. In U.S. the movie will start in December 2012, but producers decided to start returning money in Eastern Europe, falsely thinking that people here have lower standards for special effects and stuff.

Anyway, the idea is good, execution too, and after the movie i expected cookies to float up from the box :)

Honestly, I learned about the film only from advertising. After watching the trailer, I was surprised, it's not every day you see a high-quality, well planned picture. The idea seemed to me interesting enough, the music is great, and the cast is excellent, well, I decided to go to this motion picture, hoping to see something new and unusual. I can not say that the film is completely lived up to my expectations.

Think of all the visuals will love movies, because each frame is similar to an independent picture, and it is no exaggeration and sarcasm. The two worlds are quite different, they are difficult to compare, but they are both beautiful in their own way. One world - the sunny metropolis, second - steam punk gloomy town. Honestly, I can say that this film can inspire a fabulous art objects and musical masterpieces.

In the soundtrack of authorship Audiomachine I fell immediately after watching the trailer. He's not intrusive, but maintains an atmosphere of the film.

The first ten minutes of the film the audience tell the universe itself and its rules. All these beautiful drawings and attached personnel. All anything, but this story seems to be dull and boring. Such a beginning influenced by my perception of the story the hero's life. Therefore tie melodrama seemed to tighten, although the film does not seem boring.

Most of all I "hit" the ending picture. Get the feeling that cut out a epilogue and then leave all the work. In my opinion, the trailer was much more interesting movie, I do not know, perhaps because he was more intrigued audience, or because he was more dynamic. In general, received a quality, beautiful, do not strain your brain melodrama. In general, to rejoice: French film happy ending!

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.

In Upside Down, director Juan Diego Solanas presents us a romance set in sci-fi fantasy with Jim Sturgess and Kirsten Dunst playing the leads. The film begins with a young Adam (Jim Sturgess) explaining the extra-ordinary setting of a dual planetary system he belongs to with two planets stacked one on top of the other. If you could remember that extra-ordinary scene in Inception where Ariadne (Ellen Page) tests her powers on a city road, it would be easy to visualise this setting where both these planets are literally a stone's throw from each other. The planet below is Down There which is a dump wears the look of a war ravaged zone and is populated by poor have-nots who can barely eke out a living. In contrast, the planet above, Up Top, bears an ultra swanky look with affluence all around. He also explains a set of principles which govern the physics of these two planets, viz. -

Both the planets have their own opposing gravity and matter from each planet is pulled by the respective gravity An object's weight can be offset by matter from the other world (inverse matter) Matter in contact with inverse matter starts burning after some time Any unauthorised contact with the residents of the other planet is strictly prohibited and is punishable

Despite their close proximity, they are connected by a singular high rise structure which connects both these worlds which is owned by a mega corporation from Up Top called Transworld which controls the affairs of both the planets. Transworld mines the resources of Down There and also allows the poor workers from the other planet to toil for the corporation for earning a livelihood. We also see that the tallest peaks of both the planets come very close to each other and this is where we see a young Adam, who is a resident of Down There chances upon Eden (Kristen Dunst) from the other planet. Their contacts grow in length and frequency and when one such extended contact is detected by security guards, it results in an accident in which Eden loses her memory of Adam. Ten years pass by without an event and Adam carries on with life under the presumption that Eden is lost/dead and is now working as a scientist in a workshop in Down There. One day, when he sees Eden in a TV show and finds out that she is now an employee at Transworld, his feelings for her are rekindled and he too joins as an employee of Transworld to meet her and to rediscover their lost love. The rest of the movie narrates the events unfolding in the lives of the protagonists following Adam's risky venture.

This movie, in itself, has much in common with the dual contrasted planetary system it portrays. Despite the seemingly unlimited potential inherent in such an interesting premise, the movie never rises to reach its potential (a la Up Top) except in the case of visual splendour and plummets into an insipid romance (a la Down There) that redefines the term cheesy. The movie is further weighed down by an uninspired and apparently sleepwalking cast with the notable exception of the vivacious Timothy Spall who plays a lively cameo as Adam's co-worker. There is enough material in the premise to weave an engaging plot for some great romance between the leads from opposing worlds or even some well written drama or action thriller on class struggles. Alas, all Solanas and his co-writers could manage here is to barely scratch the surface, rather than to dig in deeper to come up with a more polished work. It is sadly ironic that a film which has gravity as its central premise is bogged down by a story and characters lacking the necessary gravitas !

The result is sadly apparent in a superficial, barely there plot, underwritten one-note characters and a grand opportunity that is squandered royally. Nevertheless, the movie does excel in presenting arresting visuals that are simply awesome in their imagination and execution which redeems it, if not wholly. Every frame of this movie is rich in beautifully crafted detail and presents picture postcard imagery which is simply dazzling. There are several stand-out scenes like the shot of an apparently endless office floor (and ceiling) full of cubicles or the one in which Adam, to escape chasing cops, falls, nay, leaps up into a river as well as the one of a grand ballroom with dancers from either world swaying on their respective ends with a giant chandelier in the middle.

Overall, this movie presents one of the most artistically sculpted exquisite and imaginative CGI visual splendours seen in recent times and would be a delight to watch on the big screen. If only the writers had put in even half the efforts of creating such visuals, we could have had a much better movie than what remains here as pure eye-candy that merely provides spectacular visual delights, but little else. If only ....

I like sci fi movies when they are a metaphor of something else. Or maybe they do not pretend to be a metaphor and it is just me who can't avoid to see it that way.

And I like movies when they show who the director is.

When I first start watching the movie, I thought it was a Russian film. And that the worlds were a metaphor from the cold war.

But it didn't go deep into this analogy. But, it did develop the topic that the protagonist was from an inferior world trying to have the privilege to enjoy the superior world. The inferior world is poor. The superior world is rich, developed, and dominates the inferior world, even when this superior/inferior distinction is arbitrary.

And I loved the scenes in the cafe Dos Mundos, with couples dancing a tango "el último café". Yes. The director, Solanas, is argentinean, from the land of tango. And yes, he has this vision of inferior versus superior world. I live in a country from the inferior world. And I know, just like the protagonist, that this is just an arbitrary distinction.

Solanas is like the protagonist. He comes from the inferior world, but now lives with the privileges from the superior world.

This movie made me think about my situation. Working in Latin America for a Multinational company, doing the work just to see how the "superior" world takes the benefits.

Good sci-fi movie for us, the inhabitants from the inferior world...

a profound social message. a love story respecting the sacred rules and ordinary expectations. and good actors. all in Sci. Fi. package. result - a nice film about freedom and differences and passion and ways to affirm it and terrible confrontations. nothing new. but seductive. for the performances of Kirsten Dunst and Jim Sturgess. for the art of Timothy Spall. for a script who reminds desires and dreams and old stories. for technology who has the root of fantastic images. for the simple, insignificant details who define each life. for the poetry. and for the imagination. and it is all. enough for see it. twice. or for a wise verdict - it could be better. but it is it.

I want to start by saying this movie is a romantic fantasy and it is a superb, beautifully crafted, incredible movie. This is the kind of movie that really uses this medium (cinema) to help us travel to imaginary and impossible places and situations.

People examining the physics in this movie are starting with the wrong foot, this movie is like a dream meant to be enjoyed. The images in this movie are like extraordinary postcards and will be hard to forget due to its beauty and detail.

The sets in this movie are beyond words and the acting is outstanding. The romantic couple is fantastic together.

I wish there were more movies with this kind of genuine and imaginative subjects.

Great movie, impossible not to recommend.

The concept and style of the movie is what drew me in the most. It was unique and rich. However some of the character moments fall flat and are borderline satirical to see. Overall though, it is a movie that has stuck with me since I remembered seeing it back when it was released. To be an out going and memorable movie should shine bright enough to eclipse it's character flaws.

This movie might possibly be enjoyed if the sound is off, as the visuals and CG are quite beautiful. There has been a lot of effort expended on the movies appearance. Unfortunately, it's a complete waste.

If you like cynically criticising cinematic stupidity while drinking with friends, this movie will prove very entertaining.

Otherwise, if you are capable of finding IMDb and reading reviews, then it is highly unlikely this movie will not enrage you. The endless amount of loose ends, partial explanations, annoying narration, shallow dialogue, poor acting ... just raises the question of why? Beautiful, but relentlessly stupid.

The story is basically a new version of Romeo & Juliet. Since the movie has really stunning graphics and unique world setting, my eyes were enjoying catching every details scene by scene. Actors/actresses are good that they made the love story so sweet. I just think the story might has a better ending if more budget was allocated to the film making. I think it is a bit too short right now. When you are going to watch this film, I would advise you to keep your mind open to the story. Don't be too picky about the details of the two universes and their technology. Anyway, The story is so romantic and original, it is worth to watch in the cinema. I feel refreshing after watching the film.

I'm all for science fiction, with filmmakers and writers coming up with something innovative and unique worlds to spin their respective tales in. But sometimes they try too hard in explaining their vision and set the rules they want those in the same sandbox to play in, and these inadvertently get to trip everything up, that they no longer make much sense, and instead provide those gaping plot loopholes in which you have to accept wholeheartedly, since there will be no explanations for these gaps at all.

And so, Upside Down by Juan Solanas is exactly that, where the plot device, ideas and backgrounds work if they didn't get explained to death. But it had to provide three "laws" from the get go that immediately sunk whatever goodwill you want to extend in order to enjoy the film. It showed us two planets side by side to each other, and that these planets are unique because they have dual gravity, which abide by the rules of matter being in one gravity, will always be pulled by the same, that weight can be offset by matter from the other world, known as inverse matter, and that inverse matter will burn when it's in contact with matter from the other side.

All's fine and dandy, except when you seriously think about it, how can the two worlds be connected to each other by virtue of a Tower of sorts, which serves the conglomerate known as Transworld where the richer Up world is exploiting minerals from the Down world, thereby creating an instant income gap that's as wide as the planets are apart. This fixed connection meant no rotation on their own axes, otherwise this Tower would break, and if no rotation, how do we explain sunrises and sunsets? Worse, how can light even penetrate through to the lands, especially deep within, when skyscrapers are everywhere, suggesting that the individual worlds are actually flat. But this contradicts its opening scene...

So put that astronomical logic aside, and focus instead on the love story. It's a Romeo and Juliet epic where two lovers are star-crossed, and each time they managed to transcend their constraints, the calvary arrives without question and starts shooting at them, condemning them to stolen kisses and glances, and another convenient and inconsequential plot development where one of them had to suffer from temporary amnesia due to a fall. And conveniences are what Solanas enjoyed most in his film when he discovered he'd soon be found out, that the logic he placed didn't become the opportunity for a special tale to be told, but an albatross around the neck.

Jim Sturgess plays Adam, the man from Down who falls in love with Kirsten Dunst's Eden from Up, whom he met when they were young kids atop their respective mountain peaks, and breaking multiple rules just to hang out together. They separate for more than a decade, before Adam conjures up a plan, with the help of others, to try and infiltrate to the Up world by using inverse-matter, strapping a whole lot of them in a vest, and hidden in various parts of his clothing, so that he could anchor himself on the right side of gravity when in the other planet. But the law says that inverse matter will burn up, so in between his hour long dates with Eden, he has to disappear ala Cinderella before his entire body combusts. So he can't really hold much of a conversation for too long, or partake in whole day activities with his lady love.

But the narrative sometimes forgets this, and opts to signal his time is up in the most random of ways and durations, even as far as montages go. The only good out of this is following Adam's flight from lady love, coupled with fantastical imagery as he transits from world to world, especially when racing against time. Stripped out of its science fiction elements, this is a tale of obsession and sacrifice for love, plain and simple, without those unnecessary rules to play by. The special effects will set to wow, especially when it remembers that Adam has a specific career requirement in the development of an anti-ageing cream, with a key ingredient that will be crucial to the plot.

Jim Sturgess and Kristen Dunst didn't need too much time to make it believable that they could be lovers separated by distance and social standing. The film tries a feeble attempt at condemning the status quo of a class system, so the potential got wasted. The leads serve as eye-candy, while on the other hand had enough acting chops in them to make you fall in love with them as well, and appreciate their plight. But Solanas' handling of the story, and film, left too many gaping narrative gaps that would short change the audience, especially its ending when the director felt that pulling the plug on a tale he has no idea how to finish, would be the best move. And thus condemned the entire film.