Review of Upside Down (2012) by Jason G — 17 Sep 2016

An unparalleled amount of (binary) world building is undermined by a unifying love story that vacillates between endearing and insufferable, plus a string of plot holes as long as one's arm.

For a non-exhaustive list of SPOILER-HEAVY plot holes, please read on:

How do both planets manage to experience day and night AND remain in a consistent position relative to each other? Does one planet rotate perpendicularly to the sun?

How does the bee pollen work? How does something from one world affect the gravity of another?

If matter in contact with inverse matter regularly combusts, how is the Transworld building held together?

If people from Down Below and Up Top are rarely allowed to communicate, why do elevators in the Transworld building have negative and positive floors?

How did Adam get a job with Transworld between scenes when it was established that jobs at the company were largely given out by lottery?

How exactly did restaurant patrons enjoy drinks of inverse liquid when such a beverage would burn holes through their organs if it weren't excreted quickly enough?

How did Adam regularly manage to pass roughly 330 lbs. of inverse matter through security? At a weight of 165 lbs., in order to be able to move around Up Top, he would have to attach twice his weight in inverse matter to his person, and more importantly, he would have to pass that matter through security. Which means that in order to pass through security at 165 lbs., he would have to attach another 330 lbs. of regular matter to his person. How did a slender fellow like him manage to attach a total of 660 lbs. of matter and inverse matter to the inside of his clothes?

Why would Boruchowitz give a box of his belongings to Adam for safekeeping when it was common knowledge that matter combusts when in contact with inverse matter?

How could an inverse gravity cosmetics line possibly work without creating literal chemical burns?

When Adam crossed to Up Top, did he have any vision problems? Did he see from his perspective, or did his vision reorient itself?

Did Adam find it awkward or even tiring to move his limbs according to inverse gravity? And how did his hair manage to respect the gravity laws of Up Top when he barely put any hairspray in it?

How did Adam not die after falling several hundred feet and plunging into an ocean while escaping from Up Top? And how did he not die after falling several hundred feet and landing in a field? How did he manage to survive both times when Eden fell maybe twenty feet, landed on stone, and cracked her head open?

How was Adam able to stay in Up Top for about twelve hours without bursting into flames?

How did Eden sit in her apartment for several days without noticing the inverse matter flowers resting in a vase on her countertop?

Why were there essentially no real legal consequences to Eden and Adam's escapades on both worlds? Eden's charges are dropped, and Adam is tossed out of a car. Is that really it for punishment, especially considering just how heinous both worlds consider contact with each other?

When Eden was Down Below, how did her hair not stand on its end?

If the matter from the two planets cannot interact for more than a few hours, how did biologically compatible humans evolve on both worlds?

How did Eden get pregnant and not have her uterus explode?

How does getting pregnant with half-inverse babies alter the gravity source that one is affected by?

Which world would Eden and Adam's kids be able to walk on? Would they float?

It's easy to appreciate the director's vision, but the glut of logical fallacies and unanswered questions overshadows the rest of the film.