Alice Upside Down

The promise from the PR Company associated with this heavily targeted teen movie suggests that 'If you like High School Musical and Camp Rock you're going to LOVE 'Alice Upside Down'. Frankly, I doubt it.

Where Disney have scored so brilliantly with the HSM franchise, and the less successful though huge grossing 'Camp Rock' is that they not only created satisfying teen movies, but managed to shoe-horn in more associated music than you could shake a cheerleader's baton at. Not so with the rather turgid and moderately depressing 'Alice Upside Down'.



Just to kick things off on a high, we learn that the slightly depressed and dour-looking Alice McKinley (Alyson Stoner, 'Cheaper by the Dozen') is having trouble lifting herself up after her Mother died - some six years previously.

Then - and you'll like this never thought of before teen movie twist - she has to move to a new town with her Dad, a musician / music store owner played by Luke Perry. Her goofy brother (played by Lucas Grabeel thereby providing a tenuous link to HSM) is coming along for the ride too.

At her new school she gets assigned to the grouchiest teacher in the school's class (Mrs. Plotkin played by Penny Marshall, Laverne and Shirley).



She joins a theatre club in an effort to make some pals and, though things do not go well initially, she learns some valuable life lessons and soon settles in.

Based on the gritty teen novels by Phyllis Reynolds Naylor, often banned in the US by the middle states, the movie grossly dilutes all the grit and turns it into pure fluff.

 The bottom line is that Alice appears to be completely awkward, always spilling something over somebody, or single handedly screwing up the school play or an important date for her Dad. But she's learning people. Valuable life lessons turned into moralistic candy floss for the masses. Or something like that. Whatever the case, it never quite gels.



Alice is all together too depressed for this to ever rival the feel-good formula of HSM and Camp Rock. There are a few moments that might raise a semi-sardonic smile from a knowing teen, though these tend to be delivered in pure slapstick form, with 'embarrassment' at the root of all the laughs on offer.

Part of the problem with the movie is that, in its own way it's not truly awful. There are some tender moments, like Alice's sympathy with her grouchy teacher when she falls ill, or even the tenderness between brother and sister, or dad and daughter when the chips are down. But despite all the merchandising, all the pink packaging and all the promises of how much we're all going to love it...it's blatantly obvious that the majority of teenage viewers simply won't.  My two teenage daughters thought it disappointing and a bit boring.



What's worrying is that, faced with a fairly unmarketable commodity, the producers have decided to go for the cynical approach of miss-marketing it; promising something that it's clearly not. So there'll be a lot of disappointed little girls as a result. This is a real shame and just adds to the growing feeling that advertising, PR and hype are really not to be believed. I'm surprised at how cynical my daughters have become, but with movies being miss-marketed in this way, it's easy to see why.

The 1.78:1 anamorphic widescreen image quality is all fine, though the cinematography, in contrast to HSM and Camp Rock (well, you mentioned it), is dark and a little dull with little vibrancy.



The extras are fairly paltry though more than sufficient, with two superfluous cast interviews, a featurette on the costumes (why?!) and a trailer.

Though not the worst teen movie I've seen by any stretch, it's so far away from being the best that I would not recommend a purchase. With a tag promising something close to High School Musical or Camp Rock this picture may well find itself subject to the trade descriptions act.