stagedlined466 I love GKIDS. Bringing us some of us the best foreign animated films. They are responsible for distributing; The Secret of Kells, Chico and Rita, Ernest and Celestien and many more. So naturally when I heard of this movie I didn't think twice to give it a rent.First off I love the idea of the inverted people. There is so much creativity in the animation. The characters are pretty likable as well and the character animation is actually very expressive. However although the concept is unique the plot itself was lacking.It's the same generic dystopian society that hates people who are different because... reasons. That part of the movie is what what keeps it from from being a great movie. I think it should just been a more simple story and not about a big government conspiracy.

cguldal I had high hopes for Patema Inverted. I set off allowing the plot's main point, that some humans experienced gravity in one direction while others in the opposite all on the same planet, all the artistic license it needed. The Great Change, which is the event that the film starts with, caused this separation among the humans. Not only humans, but their belongings also abide by these strange new physical laws (so my bag would fly off to the sky if I let it, while yours will fall to the ground, let's say). So already the amount of disbelief is rather large at the start. OK, fine. I let it be. I accepted all this as a possibility, no matter how impossible and unexplained. The problem arose when things happened and they were not explored at all. In the beginning, we get a brief explanation of the "horrible experiment" that lead to the Great Change. At the end, after all Patema and Age have gone through, after their immense discovery that the sky and the stars are NOT what they seem, we are left with the same inane description of how things happened. We end where we ended. No mysteries are explained. Nothing develops. Not once do the teenagers tell anyone what they discovered above. It seems very important. It seems that all those people who "fell into the sky," all those "sinners" may be alive? We have no idea what is going on. We have no idea why they go up there and then come back down right away and then never tell anyone about it. We are left clueless. Forget about us, the poor people of Agai are left completely clueless.Beyond the fact that the plot is, um, problematic, emotional development of the characters is underwhelming. We see most development in Patema, while everyone else remains somewhat the same. The "friendship" between Lagos and Age's father is left strangely vague (so vague that at times I wondered if they are trying to hint at a gay relationship!!!) The "villain" is entirely flat with a complete lack of real motive. We never get to understand him, not even that he is pure evil, if he is... At times, the dialog veered into a direction that made me think that some greater meta philosophy was being hinted at, that this was all allegory and such. But no, not really. It was not there, or if it was, it was done so poorly that there was no way to make any heads or tails from it.In the end, I focused on the comical elements in the film. The jealousy Nato feels and his constant grumbling was a relief. And the awkward inverted hugs between Patema and Age, who are 15 or so, was perfect for some chuckles.Sometimes I wonder how you can go wrong with a good idea and great art, but here is a good example. I won't comment on the dialog because I had to watch it dubbed and I am sure it was a tad bit better in Japanese with Japanese voices, but the writing was shallow and, even if you forgive that, it made no sense at times. I kept thinking that something, anything, needs to make sense, and other than the teenage jealousy of Nato, nothing really made much sense.Recommended only for those who love to watch beautiful animated scenes regardless of content.

Reno Rangan Another direct-on-net release from the director of 'Time of Eve'. A very unique concept that resembles Hollywood's live-action 'Upside Down'. It should not be a reason to you to discard from watching. In fact a lot better than that and completely a different storyline. When I picked to watch it I did not think it will reach beyond my expectation, but it did. And now it becomes one of the top rated by me among a few others from the year 2013. Anime movie fans must not miss it.Patema, a young girl who lives in the underground tunnels is curious about the outside world which is forbidden to enter. Her father, a pioneer who was disappeared trying to find a bridge between the worlds. One day while exploring on the danger zone she falls into a deep hollow pit. Wake-ups and finds in a strange world where people are upside down and to them she's. Meets someone who she can trust, and he saves her from falling further into the sky. The mystery about the inverted world and what cause it was told while Patema makes her escape while other men try to hunt her down.''The sky eats all sinners.''Initially I laughed because few scenes looked so funny, like a kid walking on the street having a hydrogen balloon in his hand. In the other end the story narration was pretty serious, so I put back my concentration to the movie. Falling in a hole and finding yourself in a different world is what basically inspired from the fairy tale 'Alice in Wonderland'. We could have expected that from Studio Ghibli, but this one was completely a science-fiction and that is what this director is famous for. The concept was not the fresh, the story created around it was. The animation was only a little disappointing in few parts. Art was great and I don't know what is the framerate, but the motion was not smooth, especially in the slow motions. Other than technical aspect, it can be enjoyed by anyone without age limit.The end twist totally changes the perspective of the story that involved in the earlier. A nice solution, but it will not explain in detail the experiment that caused the world split with two opposite gravity forces. In my opinion, it is fine for not binding it to thoroughly on the science. As it now, everyone can understand it, even the common people. You know everyone can't be intelligent like who are, entertainment is the notion and this movie serves it well. I thought after the legend Miyazaki's retirement, the anime industry may fall behind, but his son and especially this filmmaker looks very promising and a few others I have noticed. We usually see quite a lot animation movies every year, but not that much anime movies. It is limited, so don't miss the opportunity if you get one for this movie.

proterozoic I used to be a fan of anime, a huge one too... but the more good live-action movies one sees, the less one is impressed with anime writing, plots and characters. I'm set for life on screaming 15-year-olds, thank you.Then again, once in a while a concept anime comes along that just completely blows your wig off, and Patema Inverted is one of these. The main characters are a pair of 15-year- old... dang it. All right, it's not completely original, and sometimes even bad, like when it has an obnoxiously evil general right out of Gundam Wing for a villain. Fortunately, the central couple are very modest with tears and histrionics, which is all the more impressive considering the terrifying anti-gravity hijinks they go through (a "69" version of Castle in the Sky, to put it in very general terms).The movie opens with the sight of a large city over radio transmissions. The voices begin to talk more quickly, then transition into an outright panic, and then, we see the buildings detach from the ground and fall up into the sky, in ruins. Patema is an adolescent girl born after this tragedy. She lives in an tunnel community deep underground, and likes to explore the "forbidden zone" - an uninhabited area where for some reason, all the EXIT signs are on the floor and railings attach to the ceiling. One day, she finds a colossal vertical shaft and notices that in this shaft, dust motes travel up.She decides to follow the motes and explore, and discovers a world outside, covered in grass and trees, where the sky is visible and the stars shine at night. It's too bad that gravity here is the opposite of hers, and she's basically clinging to the world's ceiling for dear life, with the sky waiting to swallow her as soon as her grip gives out. Then, things get wild.Direction and visual design are superb, and exceedingly creative with the possibilities of inverted gravity, especially when two people - one inverted, one straight - clasp onto one another. In fact, maybe a little too good - there were points where I kept imagining streams of vertigo puke spew out of my face and fly into the clouds. If you're scared of heights, you will sweat more watching this than any horror movie.Did you ever watch Memento and then spend a couple of hours thinking backwards or expecting to forget everything any second? This type of lasting head-job is something I got very strongly watching Patema. Hell, I'm typing this in Notepad right now and automatically wondering how many lines I can write before they come unstuck from the top of the window and crash down.Without further spoilers, I give Patema Inverted the highest possible grade. I only just have one additional complaint: have any of these people ever heard of a rope harness?