In the Japanese animated film “Patema Inverted,” a girl from a mysterious underground world finds herself transported to an alternative land where gravity is reversed and she has to hold onto something to keep from floating way.
The film by Yasuhiro Yoshiura suffers from many of the same flaws as other anime features — a plodding pace, broad humor, a bland heroine and snarly, one-dimensional villains. Patema is a nice, plucky girl who falls (literally) for a boy from the opposite world, and the two learn that when one of them is on home turf, the other’s reversed-gravitational pull can be used to fly away from the conformist baddies who stalk them.
The same kind of gravity-opposed romance formed the story line in last year’s Kirsten Dunst-Jim Sturgess film “Upside Down,” and this one doesn’t do any better at resolving the silliness of the situation. By the end of the film, they’re still gravitationally incompatible, and we’re left pondering the deep thought that opposites attract.