Inception
Written and Directed by Christopher Nolan
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Kn Watanable and Tom Berenger
A lot of what I do here is comparing one movie to another occurrence or event and pointing out weird (sometimes half-assed) parallels between the two works. Inception doesn’t really allow me to do that. It is truly it’s own unique thing, like it or hate it, that stands on its own two legs and never feels derivative. In other words, Inception is the “ying” to a movie like Grown-Ups “Yang.”
Inception is the movie that I was most looking forward to seeing this summer. In my eyes, Christopher Nolan hasn’t missed yet. Arguably his weakest film is Insomnia and even THAT I found to be a pretty cool little thriller and have even re-watched it a few time on cable.
But after The Prestige and The Dark Night, my hopes were set pretty high for Inception, but I was a little worried by the special-effects-laden trailers. Those fears were quickly assuaged and from the moment that WB logo hit the screen, I was all in.
What is amazing to me is that Christopher Nolan could make this film in 2 years. Somewhere, James Cameron is crying into a pile of money muttering, “Unobtainium - How could I be so f-ing stupid? Unobtainium!” over and over to himself. What does Christopher Nolan have going for him that James Cameron doesn’t? Christopher Nolan knows how to tell a story that feels original and uses special effects to ENHANCE the storytelling instead of BEING the story. If you release a movie and the first reaction you get from people is that the effects look really cool, you failed.
But enough about that. What is Inception? It’s a little hard to describe. Saying it is a “dream” is a major copt-out, because it isn’t, but it kind of is. It’s more about the IDEA of dreaming and how the brain processes information and less about being weird for the sake of weird, like more “dream” flicks. Does that make sense? It’s almost as if Christopher Nolan saw Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind and turned to his producer and said, “Oh it’s Game on, Charlie Kaufman.”
Here are the nuts and bolts of Inception. Leonardo DiCaprio is really awesome at going into peoples dreams and getting them to reveal things they have been hiding, usually concerning money. This process is called “extraction.” Now, this is fairly easy and not a movie-worthy process. He is offered a chance to get back to the U.S. (he did something and can’t return) if he is able to do an “Inception” which is to plant an idea into a persons brain during a dream. This is much harder (some would contend it is impossible) because the human brain very easily rejects an idea being yours that isn’t yours (unless your Carlos Mencia.) So Leo tries to do the inception and that is what the film is about. Simple, no?
Inception isn’t really hard to understand but it is not for a minute dull or uninteresting. Like I said before, Christopher Nolan knows how to tell a story REALLY well. So well that the ending might just piss you off a little, but in a good way.
On a personal note, I think that everybody who enjoys movies should see Inception even if you don’t think this is the type of movie for you. Why? Because in a summer movie season that is almost entirely made up of sequals, retreads, reimaginings and Cats & Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore, Inception is an original work of art. And original works of art are so few and far between in Hollywood these days, that they should be rewarded with our money. I’m glad it has made over $100 million and I hope it makes $500 million more. Please go see it, if not for me, then for your children.
Chris’ Review: Pretty Pretty Pretty Pretty Pretty Good.
