Upside Down Review

Generally when we think of sci-fi stories or films we think of action, aliens, and disastrous effect of bizarre technologies. We rarely think of sci-fi in terms of drama or romance, but there are examples of those unusual stories in film such as A.I. Artificial Intelligence and The Adjustment Bureau. In 2012 a Canadian-French romantic sci-fi film was released and the trailer was positively fascinating. It took a while for me to get around to it, but the movie did not disappoint. Upside Down shows us an incredibly unique setting and some amazing camera work.

Ever since Adam (Jim Sturgess) and Eden (Kirsten Dunst) fell in love as teens, their bond has faced astronomical odds. The pair are separated not just by social class and a political system bent on keeping them apart, but also by a freak planetary condition: they live on twinned worlds with gravities that pull in opposite directions-he on the poverty-stricken planet below, she on the wealthy, exploitative world above. Their budding but illicit romance screeches to a tragic halt when interplanetary-border patrol agents catch them and Eden suffers an apparently fatal fall. But when, ten years later, Adam learns she is alive and working at a vast corporation whose towering headquarters connects their planets, he sets out on a dangerous quest to infiltrate the company and the upper world to reconnect with her.

Like so many sci-fi and fantasy movies Upside Down starts off with a prologue that simultaneously sets up the story and explains the physics of the twin world gimmick in ways that will more or less satisfy the average moviegoer, or at least keep them from asking pesky questions about the lack of orbits or how the twinned worlds can have sunrises and sunsets and the like. Unfortunately the writer-director Juan Diego Solanas has made the bizarre decision to explain these details entirely through Adam's voiceover rather than showing us how it works. That always bothers me since movies are a visual storytelling medium, so why not show us how things work rather than having a narration? But it serves its purpose and we quickly understand how the mechanics of this setting works and understand the risks our protagonists are taking right from the get go. The setting reminds me of the 1927 Fritz Lang movie Metropolis, in which society has been literally split into two unequal classes; the rich living in an impossibly luxurious city in the sky and ruthlessly exploiting the resources and labor of the working class that dwells below ground in poverty. The setting in Upside Down simply has fascinating and bizarre physics to further complicate the socioeconomic divide.

Another complaint that I have about the movie is the fact that there is a highly interesting setting, but a rather weak screenplay. This twin-world concept is a premise that could inspire any number of fantastical stories, but the screenplay is content to do a simple Romeo and Juliet retread about two lovers from opposite worlds fighting to be together. And since the young-lovers plot device is the main focus of this story, why needlessly complicate things with the even more cliché trope of amnesia and force the other to jump through hoops just to jog her memory? The screenplay also suffers from some dialogue that occasionally sounds unnatural, almost as if the script had gone through a couple of languages in Google Translate before finally being translated into English. That's not to say it's all bad, it just sounds somehow off from time to time.

But having said that, I am willing to overlook some amateurish storytelling if the movie in question is bold or stylish enough to make up for narrative shortcomings, and Upside Down is one such movie. Practically every scene is crammed full of visual marvels that range from an endless sea of office drones, to a grand ballroom with dancers twirling about on both the floor and the ceiling, to Adam escaping some flames by jumping up into a nearby river. My goodness, I don't know how many of these visuals were achieved. Probably with a lot of CGI, but it looks as though a whole lot of practical effects were incorporated as well. And it's not just the big special effects displays like Eden being lowered from Down Below to Up Top by a rope, making her resemble a balloon on a string. Subtle little things like having an item from the other world and having to rest it on the underside of the desk so it doesn't fall upwards are used with such casual nonchalance that it really sells the bizarre physics of the setting and makes it hard to take your eyes from the screen. The results are so stunning I would gladly take a couple images shown here over most anything from recent blockbuster epics any day. It's the kind of imagery where you could pause the movie at any given moment and just study the image as one might study a painting. Here's the trailer to give you an idea of what this movie looks like:

Upside Down is such a gorgeous movie to watch that I half expect Terry Gilliam to have wished he'd thought of some of the visuals used here. In spite of its wonderfully unique and fascinating premise and a talented cast, the story fails to offer much in the way of a compelling drama or romance to anchor it's dazzling visuals. It evokes no serious emotions other than awe and wonder at how beautiful it looks. The movie clearly had big dreams, but they never quite pan out the way it obviously hoped it would. I could see most viewers either interpreting this as some kind of crackpot masterpiece or dismiss it as one of the silliest pieces of cinema they've ever seen. I enjoyed Upside Down enough that I'd consider getting my own copy, but not because the story was good. It's just so darn neat to watch! As of writing this, Upside Down is streaming on Netflix and is by no means a waste of time to watch it there.

What are some other non-action sci-fi movies you've seen? Were they also worth watching? Comment below and let me know!

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole Movie Review

I've said in previous reviews that Zach Snyder's movies are often hit or miss, but his visual style is absolutely gorgeous to behold. That said, Snyder's animation debut was pretty exciting news. I finally got around to seeing Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole (2010), and I think it somehow managed to be both hit and miss.

Soren (Jim Sturgess) is a young barn owl who is enthralled by the epic stories his father (Hugo Weaving) tells him of the Guardians of Ga'Hoole, a mythic band of winged warriors who fought a great battle to save owlkind from the evil Pure Ones. While Soren dreams of joining his heroes one day, his brother Kludd (Ryan Kwanten) scoffs at the notion. Kludd yearns to hunt, learn to fly, and earn his father's favor from his younger sibling. Kludd's eagerness causes both of the young owlets to fall from their treetop home and into the talons of The Pure Ones. The two discover the evil plot to abduct fledgling owls and raise them to become an army with which to conquer all of owlkind. Soren manages to escape with a few allies; Gylfie (Emily Barclay), Digger (David Wenham), and Twilight (Anthony LaPaglia). Together they set off to find the legendary heroes, the Warriors of Ga'Hoole to warn them of The Pure One's evil plot.

Zack Snyder's visually intense directing made Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole absolutely gorgeous to look at. Unlike most CGI animated movies which aim for a cartoony sort of look, The Owls of Ga'Hoole strived for a photorealistic art style. It was stunning! You could actually see the individual feathers on the owls fluttering in the wind, getting ruffled up during action scenes, and take on a different texture when they got wet. It is very difficult to animate hair and fur; a whole new program was created just to get Merida's hair to  look right in Pixar's Brave. There are so many feathered characters in The Owls of Ga'Hoole that it each scene must have taken ages to animate and look as good as they do in the movie. The photorealism extends to the sets and scenery, too. You could pause the movie at any time and the resulting still shot would look picturesque enough to frame and hang on the wall.

It came as no surprise to me that Zach Snyder's signature use of spontaneous moments of slow motion during action. He did this a lot in 300, Watchmen, and Sucker Punch. It's still a neat visual effect, and thankfully we don't get swamped with it. There were moments where I didn't understand why the slow motion effect was used, the scene didn't seem to justify using it. But there were other scenes such as when Soren was trying to fly through a rainstorm and tries to focus; everything slows down for a moment including the thousands of raindrops all around him. That looked really cool.

I only mentioned a few of the voice actors who appear in The Owls of Ga'Hoole above. Others include big name actors such as Joel Edgerton, Sam Neill, Helen Mirren, Abbie Cornish,  and Geoffrey Rush. There's nearly an all-star cast and they do great! The voice acting is spectacular. Hugo Weaving actually voices two characters, but it's done so well you'd hardly know they were the same actor.

The downside to The Owls of Ga'Hoole is the weak plot. The movie is based on Kathryn Lasky's book series and the movie received a lot of negative comments about the modified story. I haven't even heard of the books so I can't comment there, but it made fans of the books upset enough to mention it here. The story ended up being very predictable and vague on details.  The Pure Ones have some sort of magic metal "flecks" that they get from owl pellets (a mass of undigested parts of a birds food that some bird species occasionally regurgittaes). How that is magic and why that paralyzes enemies was totally lost to me. The characters were simple and predictable. So much of this movie has been done in dozens of other children's adventure movies that literally nothing surprises you in the least.

For being Zach Snyder's first animated feature, Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga'Hoole was not a bad attempt at an animated movie. The photorealistic animation was stellar to say the least, and the camera work was fantastic! The story and characters were so predictable that it's safe to say you've already seen this movies several times before, unless you're an 8-year-old. The movie seemed to try to go for a hard core edge while still being kid-friendly. This wouldn't be a bad family movie; the animation will likely captivate adult audiences while the simple characters and story are easy enough for younger kids to keep up with. Overall, I think I would have been just fine if I hadn't seen the movie at all. I don't think it's worth the money to purchase unless you truly value the impressive animation or have young kids who would enjoy an animated action movie.

Is there a director who has only done live action movies whom you'd love to see make an animated feature? I think a Quentin Tarantino movie would be crazy! Comment below and tell me who you'd like to see direct an animated feature!

Across The Universe Movie Review

So, I've heard the "Hollywood musical" is making a comeback. I'm not sure where that came from, since most of the musicals that have come out in the past several years have been movie versions of already popular Broadway shows, not a musical that came from Hollywood. The exceptions I can think of are Pitch Perfect, if that can be called a musical; Repo! The Genetic Opera, the first rock opera in ages; and Across The Universe (2007). Across The Universe did use songs exclusively from The Beatles, but it feels more like a musical that any other "Hollywood Musical" released in a long time.

Jude (Jim Sturgess), visiting the United States in search of his long-lost father, meets Lucy (Evan Rachel Wood), through her brother, Max (Joe Anderson), a student at Princeton. After deciding to drop out of college, Max and Jude drive to New York and settle in the sprawling East Village tenement and are soon joined by Lucy. Their landlady, Sadie (Dana Fuchs), is an aspiring rock singer and the resident earth mother. Rounding out the bohemian household are Jo-Jo (Martin Luther McCoy), a guitarist who arrives from Detroit after his younger brother's death in the Detroit riots, and Prudence (T.V. Carpio) an Asian-American lesbian cheerleader who hitchhikes to New York from Dayton, Ohio. Each one is desperate to make something, anything, of themselves, but the world is changing around them and is pulling each of them in very different directions as the Vietnam War takes its toll on The United States.

All of the music in Across The Universe is from The Beatles. Their music is classic, timeless, and outstanding. I'm not real big into music and even I love The Beatles. The songs are jazzed up and redone with somewhat more contemporary music, but mostly stick to their source material very well. At worst, they sound like respectable covers of popular songs.

A couple of the songs are done a little differently, though. In an early scene, Prudence is singing "I Want to Hold Your Hand," but it's done as a slow, soft song instead of a fast, upbeat song. Given that context you realize that the lyrics are not about the excitement of holding a lovers hand, but about unrequited love. It's actually a sad scene and sets Prudence up as a tragic character.

On the one hand, the story isn't terribly complicated, nor are the characters very well developed. They're all likable and their plights are relatable. What makes the story interesting is the songs. The songs move the story forward and develop the characters remarkably well. It's almost as if the songs which were written 40 years prior to the movie's release were tailor-made for this movie.

The visuals are absolutely stunning to behold. There's a bizarre mix of mostly live action, lots of CGI supplements, and some practical effects as well. It's so beautifully done, that I doubt you'd be able to tell which is which most of the time. The visuals compliment the 1960's vibe very well; they really play up the psychedelic aspects during particularly strange Beatles songs. It does seem like a visual trip at times. I'm pretty sure that if the technology existed in the 1960's, this is the kind of visuals a lot of movies and music videos would have strived for.

There are tons of Beatles references throughout the movie. If you're not already a Beatles fan, they'll fly over your head without your notice. Dialogue subtly include Beatles song titles, some shots imitate famous Beatles pictures, and some events mirror things The Beatles actually did. It's not always clear if it's done for humor's sake; sometimes it's kind of funny if you catch it, sometimes it's just a clever nod to The Beatles. It's not distracting in any way. If you notice it, you'll probably smile. If you are a non-Beatles fan, you'll probably just not notice.

The 1960's are well captivated in Across The Universe. In fact, many scenes are derived from actual 1960's events; violent student protests at Columbia University, the bombing in Greenwich Village, and of course the Vietnam War. There are also characters who reference pop culture icons of the 1960's. Sadie is an overt reference to Janis Joplin; Janis' throaty singing voice is well imitated by Dana Fuchs. Jo-Jo is a clear reference to Jimi Hendrix, particularly after Sadie dresses him up in a purple shirt and bandana - one of Jimi's most famous stage costumes. Minor character Dr. Robert has a psychedelic painted bus similar to that of Ken Kesey's. If you take out the special effects and the fact that people spontaneously burst into song, Across The Universe captures the feel of the 1960's remarkably well.

Across The Universe is a trippy, strange, fun, romantic, humorous musical that is unlike anything else I've ever seen. It's almost like a two hour Beatles music video that has a plot. Granted, the plot is fairly predictable, but the characters are interesting enough to be invested in them to at least some degree. It's the visual effects and music that really brings this movie to life. There are no less than 33 Beatles songs used in the movie either in their entirety or in part; they are remarkably well integrated and move the movie forward. If you're a Beatles fan, this is not something to miss. If you somehow are not a Beatles fan, there's still plenty of fascinating visuals and interesting 1960's references to see in this movie. I own a copy of this on Blu-Ray and it's sitting on my shelf next to other favorites of mine, I even have the soundtrack. I recommend seeing Across The Universe and getting your own copy as well.

Here's the trailer for Across The Universe so you can hear a sample of the songs and see some of the amazing visuals:

 

Would you like to see more "Hollywood Musicals?" Not movies that are based on existing Broadway shows, but actual original musicals from Hollywood? Comment below and tell me why or why not.

Cloud Atlas Movie Review

It’s not often that a truly ambitious movie hits theaters. It’s also pretty rare when a movie that focuses on theme more than story or narrative remains very interesting. Lana and Tom Wachowski (who directed The Matrix) wrote and directed this innovative piece of cinema with the help of Tom Tykwer and brought us an enigmatic movie called Cloud Atlas (2012).

Cloud Atlas is an exploration of how the actions of individual lives impact one another in the past, present, and future, as one soul is shaped from a killer into a hero, and an act of kindness ripples across the centuries to inspire a revolution. Everything is connected: an 1849 diary of an ocean voyage across the Pacific; letters from a composer to his friend; a thriller about a murder at a nuclear power plant; a farce about a publisher in a nursing home; a rebellious clone in futuristic Korea; and the tale of a tribe living in post-apocalyptic Hawaii, far in the future. Each member of the cast ensemble appears in multiple roles as the different stories move through time.

Cloud Atlas is an impossible movie to summarize; that really was the best way to condense it. There are a total of six stories being told; they are interrelated and interwoven stories that span centuries. The stories have a chronology to them with a unique setting and set of characters. The stories are all told simultaneously, switching back and forth between each story. Usually the transition between the stories is logical, such as switching rapidly back and forth between two stories that both have chase scenes. Other times the transition is less logical, such as a suspenseful moment being interrupted by a calmer scene in another story, then returning to the suspenseful scene.

This makes the movie somewhat disorienting at times, but really makes you think about what the feeling, theme, and idea the movie is trying to communicate. According to David Mitchell (the author of the novel Cloud Atlas was based on), the movie is structured “as a sort of pointillist mosaic: We stay in each of the six worlds just long enough for the hook to be sunk in, and from then on the film darts from world to world at the speed of a plate-spinner, revisiting each narrative for long enough to propel it forward.”

A sizeable cast is used for Cloud Atlas. The cast includes Jim Sturgess, Tom Hanks, David Gyasi, Bae Doona, Hugo Weaving, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Grant, Keith David, Susan Sarandon, Halle Berry, and Ben Whishaw. Listing the characters that these actors play in Cloud Atlas would take a lot of space. Each actor is in each of the six stories, but playing different characters in each one. In so doing, the movie explores the concepts of reincarnation and how our actions have far reaching effects in a way that I have never seen in a movie before. It was fascinating to see how different souls kept finding each other in different lives.

The actors, Tom Hanks in particular, act very differently between stories as they play different characters. Sometimes they are depicted as different ethnicities and sometimes even different genders. Seeing Hugo Weaving dressed as a very convincing female nurse was a bit odd. But so was seeing Jim Sturgess with a makeup job that made him look Korean. The makeup jobs weren’t always convincing, but it did get the point across.

The art direction was absolutely stunning. Camera techniques were captivating, the sets and costumes were stunning, the special effects were spectacular, and even the color pallet and designs were different from story to story; it was simply fascinating to watch! Some of the stories were more action based, while others were more calm and emotional, but they were presented in such a way that really draws you in. Cloud Atlas hooks you right from the beginning and doesn’t let go.

Cloud Atlas is very artistic, somewhat abstract, and a very unconventional means of structuring a movie. Because it’s so artistically complex and unlike anything else out there, I could very easily see some viewers not enjoying it. I even saw some audience members at the theater I attended leave before the movie was over. Cloud Atlas took a non-traditional narrative, impressionistic, and even a poetic approach. There was meaningfully implemented profanity, and sex scenes. That is to say it wasn’t simply junk thrown in to give it a higher rating. I didn’t find it offensive, but it’s still not something to show young viewers.

Cloud Atlas was incredible. It was fascinating to watch, captivating, and really makes you think. At two hours and forty-five minutes it’s a very long movie, but not once did I feel bored. I felt like I was viewing some mesmerizing abstract art. And like any abstract art, Cloud Atlas will not appeal to everyone. If you see it and really enjoy it, I can sympathize. If you see it and are completely confused or even hate it, I can totally understand your reasoning. I don’t expect Cloud Atlas to make much in the box office; I don’t think it will appeal to most viewers because it’s so unusual. But I enjoyed it, and I want to see it again to try to understand more of what this film is trying to say. If Cloud Atlas sounds like something you might enjoy, I recommend seeing it, possibly twice. If it sounds too strange for you, then it probably is and I’d avoid it. Nevertheless, I think I would like to own a copy of this on Blu-Ray. It’s such an intriguing work of cinematic art.

Have you ever seen an experimental film? What did you think about it? Did you like it? Did you hate it? Comment below and let me know!