Upside Down (2012)

I’m not totally sure if it considers as a recommendations BUT to me, Terrence at The Focused Filmographer totally sold this movie, Upside Down, to me.  I ended up going to the store to pick it up that following weekend and never got around to watching it so decided to watch it this weekend 🙂 Lets check it out!

Director: Juan Solanas

Cast: Jim Sturgess, Kirsten Dunst, Timothy Spall, Blu Mankuma, Kate Trotter, Larry Day

In a world where there is double gravity pulling in opposite directions, Up Top is ruled by the rich whereas Down Below is filled with the poor and less fortunate.  The two sides of the world is connected through a tower between that riches both sides, however, due to the gravity, there are serious consequences to attempting to cross to the other gravity force.  As young teens, Adam (Jim Sturgess) and Eden (Kirsten Dunst) fall in love despite their gravity differences however, in the attempt to see each other, they are found and Eden crash lands back onto her world. Assuming that Eden had died, the authorities took away his family as a consequence.  Ten years later, as he slaves away to find the anti-aging serum, he sees on television that Eden is still alive.  Fully convinced that he needed to reconnect with her, he gets a job at Level 0 research labs and launches his own plan to penetrate to the other side to see her and regain the love that he had lost for so long.

Upside Down is a fantasy romance drama. With that said (and the picture above), this movie is full of computer graphics or VFX, whatever the term is.  I’m not a ever technical person so I’m not well-versed in those terms, but you get that idea.  But guys, c’mon, just look at that picture and tell me you don’t think this movie is visually stunning! Upside Down has a beautiful concept behind it all and the love story is quite good, granted I figured out the ending 15 minutes before it actually happened.  Still, I buy it! Its cute and sweet and just so romantic.

Adam is played by Jim Sturgess.  I don’t know about you but I first saw Jim Sturgess in Across the Universe and I can’t seem to remember if I’ve seen him in anything else.  My impression of him is that he’s great at playing a hopeless romantic and if you take the vibe and stick it into his role, he was totally awesome! The model star-crossed lovesick romantic whose determination to see the one he loves is just unstoppable.  You can give me some more of his sweet charisma any day! He was fun and adorable for the most part and very convincing, I think I almost fell in love with him.

Quite opposite of Jim Sturgess, I’ve only seen adult Kirsten Dunst in Spiderman trilogy or at least in a role that I remember off the top of my head.  I’ve never been really impressed with her, not that she’s not pretty or something but she has something that doesn’t really connect with the characters she plays.  In Upside Down, living Up Top, Kirsten Dunst plays a very charming and beautiful Eden.  The character she had to act was beautiful and deep as she had to deal with the aftermath of the accident and she did a decent job portraying all that.

The character that really impressed me a lot was Timothy Spall though.  He plays Bob, a coworker from Up Top of Adam’s.  I think his character was the best in the movie with inspiring dialogue and the whole nine yards.  As much as this movie was filled with a wonderful and talented cast, it did have a bit of flaws.  You know what I felt was that this movie never really had a climax, nothing really hit a peak and intense part.  We just landed there BOOM really quickly and then 5 minutes later, it was the end of that scene and it tried to do a little twist effect that actually made me realize they were going to do that ending.  Thinking about it, the ending didn’t completely make that much sense but then the characters didn’t really know that much about the boundaries of the double gravity atmosphere to start with.

Overall, like any other movie (especially fantasy), you just have to buy the premise of it and for the most part, I did and this really worked for me.  Sure it had its flaws but what movie doesn’t? Upside Down has a lot of positives: captivating visuals, talented cast for its great characters, a beautiful love story and an original premise.  The whole interaction upside down was hard to adapt to at first but you get to used to it.  Its really a charming little movie.  I would definitely recommend it!

A huge thanks to Terrence at The Focused Filmographer.  Please go check out his blog! He features lots of fun stuff like news, polls, trailers and of course reviews.  He’s covering the White Sands International Film Festival so maybe that will interest you as well.

Are you a fan of fantasy films?