Let's be realistic.

It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.

The tone of this movie is interesting -- the stakes are both dramatic and high, but it's balanced with a lot of fun, tongue and cheek dialogue.

I enjoyed watching this film and would recommend other to give it a try , (as I am) but this movie, although enjoyable to watch due to the better than average acting fails to add anything new to its storyline that is all too familiar to these types of movies.

Good cast. Awful movie. Seems to be a ripoff of a good George Orwell type plot.

If in "Snowpiercer" it was a train here it is a building, a skyscraper to be precise, which represents, both metaphorically and explicitly, a society that is structured on several levels going to create a certain social hierarchy similar to the one in which we live every day but represented in a clearer way. In "Snowpiercer", a film I loved and which has several points in common with this, this had been made more sad, grim and resigned; here in "High-Rise" instead it was represented in a completely different way: extreme, absurd but credible in its grotesque and exasperated context. This gives the film a unique personality and a certainly special and complex atmosphere. Unfortunately, its initial security in what it says and shows is lost in some points and especially in the final part, in which the screenplay becomes more confusing and slightly less convincing. But in general the film is a brilliant, even if not completely original, experience that reflects how a poorly managed management, even just a small group of people that constitutes a society, can not work, even more so if the social strata are so close together and net at the same time. Beautiful cinematography that colors the film with tones and nuances perfectly suited to the type of film that is, excellent scenery. Experimental and over the top lines that in all ways seeks, and partly successfully, to distinguish itself from all the commercial products to which we are usually accustomed. Excellent interpretations, especially that of Luke Evans and Tom Hiddleston, pity however for a characterization of the characters a bit 'hasty.

London, 1970s. Dr Robert Laing moves into a new high-rise apartment building. It is soon apparent that there is a class-divide between the wealthier upper-floors inhabitants and the middle-class lower- floors tenants. Over time this escalates into full-blown war...Had some potential as an examination of class divides and their consequences, also as a dark drama. The opening scene was intriguing, but it soon becomes apparent that the only reason to continue watching is to see how we end up there. Hardly anything from the period in between makes sense, and just gets more and more random as time goes by. Yes, the idea was to ramp up the level of anarchy, but some degree of continuity was still called for. Becomes pretty stupid after a while.The whole us vs them thing is also laid on so thick and unobjectively that engagement is non-existent. Good cast - Jeremy Irons, Sienna Miller, Elizabeth Moss, Tom Hiddleston , James Purefoy, Luke Evans - do their best but are massively hamstrung by a very weak script and one-dimensional direction.

As I watched "High-Rise" I couldn't help wondering how they got the money for it. That must have been some pitch.I found the film buried deep in Foxtel Australia's Masterpiece Channel, but I'm beginning to think 'Masterpiece' is a destination for films that are impossible to categorise.A brief synopsis doesn't really prepare one for this film.A stressed-out doctor (Tom Hiddleston) buys an apartment in a supposedly state-of-the art, high-rise complex. He becomes embroiled in a warped "Animal Farm" existence with a class structure more or less dependent on what level of the tower block one lives on. Anarchy, and then chaos ensues as everyone parties maniacally while the facilities of the building begin to fall apart.Sound intriguing? Then you probably haven't seen the movie.It's like a mad cross between the films of Terry Gilliam and Peter Greenaway. There were sound pillars on which to construct "High-Rise" including likable actors: Tom Hiddleston with charm to spare as the doctor, and Jeremy Irons exuding gravitas as the architect who designed the building. Gorgeous Sienna Miller is also in it, but she is hard to recognise under dark hair, dirt and dried blood - I could never love a movie that treated her like that.The film has a classy score by Clint Mansell and brilliant special effects, but did J.G. Ballard's prose actually seem all that filmable? Brecht claimed that, "Art is not a mirror to hold up to society, but a hammer with which to shape it". All the hammer does in "High-Rise" is beat your brains out.And the smoking. I haven't seen that much cigarette smoking by actors this side of the millennium - it is truly breathtaking in more ways than one."High-Rise" not only failed to expand my cinematic horizons, but it also committed the cardinal sin for a film - it's tedious. At two hours, it takes a long time to make any point at all.