Review of Upside Down (2012) by Jesse O — 05 Aug 2013

If A Town called Panic is proof that you don't need consistent laughs to create a massively entertaining movie, then this movie would be proof that a great concept can't save you from poor storytelling.

I was aware of the negative reviews for this movie but I was so impressed by the concept that I decided to give it a shot based on that alone. We need more filmmakers who are trying to do something different, and for all its faults the concept, as a standalone idea and not looking at what results from it, is one of the better concepts to come out in a while.

But, as mentioned, the storytelling in this film is some kind of awful. Sometimes it feels that the sci-fi concept of two twin worlds, one rich and one poor, with gravities that pull in opposite directions came directly as a result of the poor storytelling.

I'm probably wrong, but it feels like the visuals, which are incredible, are meant to distract you from the piss-poor storytelling. The romance between these two characters is so poorly developed.

It's really quite a cliche. Boy meets girl, boy falls for girl, and vice versa, but society won't allow them to be together. Girl suffers an accident, forgets she was ever in love with Boy. At a random moment she remembers everything about Boy and their relationship, and there's no real buildup to this.

..one scene she's crying at the fact that Adam lied about who he was to get to her and the next she's back to being in love with him. It is cliched and poorly-written. Because you never really get a sense that these two are so in love that their love is 'stronger than gravity' as Adam theorizes at the beginning of the film.

And that's a problem. Another problem would be that, even though Jim Sturgess and Kirsten Dunst are both very talented, they don't seem to have a lot of chemistry with each other and in many ways that's far more important than actually writing a good love story.

It's probably because their relationship was so poorly-developed that it feels like the actors didn't really know what their motivations were supposed to be. And don't get me started on the ending, which is corny as all fucking hell.

Well really Adam's line, while narrating, that their love altered the course of history was absolutely fucking horrendous. It was way too corny for my tastes and just a terrible way to end the movie.

There's also the stuff between the rich and poor which is, obviously, supposed to be allegorical. And that's cool but the movie really fails at that too, because other than some news broadcasts in some scenes, you don't really get to see how the Up Top (rich world) has fucked Down Below (poor world), other than drilling their oil and selling it back to them at a higher price.

Other than that, you don't really get to see much of Up Top, so there's no real contrast. If you got to see how the rich world was an utopia where cancer is cured in 2 seconds, and seeing how they constantly fuck over Down Below, then it would've been better.

But a lot of it is just implied and therefore it is just poor story development. The story really is a fucking mess, it jumps around and sometimes you're not even sure how they even got to some scenes because they don't bother explaining it, and no amount of technical wizardry can save this film from being a storytelling flop.

The reason this movie got the rating was only because of the visuals but everything else in this movie kinda sucks. I applaud Juan Solanas for trying something different, but next time make sure you have a decent story to accompany your kick-ass concept.