Review of Upside Down (2012) by Mark S — 11 Nov 2012

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 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 he ventures into the upper world, the effect is used as a cheap gag rather than anything substantial to drive the plot along.

There is a half hearted swipe at the 'imperialism' of the developed world (the 'top' [North] extracts oil from the 'bottom' [South] and uses it to produce electricity that the bottom world 'can't afford'. I guess when you're an evil corporation that operates on the principle of under developing other nations rather than generating profit, it makes perfect sense. 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 cancelled 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 was 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. Dunst's character has amnesia which may be unintentionally emphasized by the way she says her name.. every.. time. 'I'm Eden... Moore.'.

The only redeeming feature was the stunning visuals. The world looked really great.

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.