Christopher Nolan has done it again. He has managed to make a thought provoking, exciting summer blockbuster that has you on the edge of your seat the whole time. I really enjoyed this movie, though I recognize it has its flaws. It seems that people are divided on whether they loved or hated this movie. I haven't come across too many lukewarm reviews of this film. I can safely say I fall into the "Love it" category. Going in I was looking forward mostly to the visual aspect of the film and was happy to find that it had a good story to go along with it.
The story is simple enough, on paper at least: Don Cobb (Leo DiCaprio) and his team (Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Leavitt, et. al.) go into people's dreams and steal their most guarded thoughts. That is until a businessman, Saito, (Ken Watanabe) asks Cobb if, instead of extracting an idea, he could implant an idea (this is known as inception). Cobb says he could even though others on his team disagree. Cobb takes the job because Saito promises he can get Cobb back to his kids if he does. Why can't Cobb get back to his kids on his own? Because he's a wanted man back in the states. Wanted for what you ask? You'll have to watch the movie to find that out.
So Cobb and his crew take the job. The mark is Robert Fischer Jr. (Cilian Murphy), heir to an energy empire whose company is Saito's rival and only roadblock to global energy control. The idea the team has to put into Fisher's mind: Break-up daddy's company after he dies. It seems simple enough, but it will require traveling to deep levels of Fischer's subconscious to achieve. If the team can't go deep enough the idea won't take. The problems: Fischer has hired extractors to train his subconscious to protect itself against other extractors. This causes problems for the team because the have to fight off "Projections" that work as assassins and these projections get more vicious the deeper they go. Also, the team has to travel through three levels of dream states (a dream within a dream within a dream), something that takes exceptional skill I'm sure. Finally, Cobb can't seem to shake his own unconsciousness within other people's dreams. He almost always comes face to face with his deceased wife, Mal, in every dream he enters and she always seems bent on destroying his work. Why? Well that's another gotta see it to understand it things.
In a nutshell there's the plot. As I said earlier I loved the movie even though I recognized its faults, but I want to highlight here the good and the bad. What worked and what fell short.
First, the good.
I loved the themes presented in the movie. As a film student I usually look past the basic plot to see what the movie is saying (intentionally or otherwise). As an LDS film student I like to see ways that "unbelievers" attempt to explain death and loss and life and meaning. This film makes a great attempt to understand the meaning of loss and what is reality. I think often people who don't believe in an afterlife or struggle to explain pain and suffering tell great stories that say, "Wouldn't it be cool if..." Inception does this. Wouldn't it be cool if we could create our own dreams and even our own worlds within those dreams. They even go so far as to say that we can be "like gods" when we create these worlds. (Where have I heard that before?) They toy with the idea of waking from those dreams thinking that the dreams are the reality and our lives our the dream. I think the characters, Cobb in particular, try to make this reconciliation. Like LOST I think Inception takes a stab at explaining our existence. Both fall short, but that's what happens when you aren't quite sure of what things mean. Yet in falling short they both touch on some beautiful truths that if only they understood they could move from, "Wouldn't it be cool if.." to "Isn't it cool that..."
Also a major plus, the visuals! I have never seen something this sharp and beautifully done. The fight scene between Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Leavitt) and Fischer's Projections is amazing. If this film doesn't win best visual effects I'm not sure what will.
And you can't leave out the ending! What great ambiguity! Is he? Isn't he? You want it to be true, but is it? This makes no sense of course and even if I told you the ending it wouldn't make sense without seeing the whole movie. Christopher Nolan, for the ending alone you win Best Picture of My Heart.
Yet with all its greatness there were some missteps:
The logic. It must be very difficult when creating a world with its own rules to stick to those rules all the time. A few examples:
1. The kick. If the sensation of falling wakes you up even from sedative induced sleep how did they not wake up when the van rolled? Also, how did they "miss the kick" I understand Arthur not kicking the group from the third level to the second, but how did Arthur miss the kick from the second to the first? (None of this makes sense without seeing the movie of course, but it will once you do)
2. The floating. Again Arthur floats in level 2 because the van is falling. Why are the guys in level 3 not floating? Sure they're asleep in level 2, but guess what? They're floating in level 2 also!
Another short coming for me was the dialog. Too much of it is exposition. It seems like they said, "We need to explain to our audience what's going on. Let's put a new character in the mix, Ariadne (Ellen Page) so the pros can explain the rules to the newbie and then everyone knows." It's a good workaround, but also a bit of a cheat. I think we're smart enough to get most of it on our own, spare us the chatter whenever you can.
All in all a great film. One I plan to own one day and one I wish I was good enough to make right now. I want to learn how Nolan did it all.
Rating: 18 Totems
5 comments:
I'll have to go see that one! Did you see Toy Story 3? I saw it in IMAX 3D. It was great!
Go get Dreamscape on netflix. I didn't read all your review because I think this is a movie I might want to see.
JACK! Why haven't I been reading your blog all along. I too was an enthusiastic fan of this film. I felt like I was having an out of body experience during that hallway fight scene. Zimmer's music compounded the whole thing that just left me paralyzed. Also, if you look carefully, there are hints throughout that suggest the real "awake" life was a dream as well. The part where he was running from the goons and got stuck in that alley way (feeling like walls are closing in on you). And his wife's comments about faceless people chasing him everywhere he goes. Also the fact that his kids at the end were wearing the same clothes as in all of his dreams. I'm not totally set on the idea but I think Nolan wanted to create that ambiguity so that viewers might even question their own reality. Great review, Jack.
Waking up from a kick is a "top-down" thing. So they are in a dream-within a dream-within another dream. When the dreams are stacked that way, you have to have a kick in the deepest level that occurs simultaneously with a kick in the more shallow level. The reason that they did not wake up when the van was sliding out of control is because they were in the hotel dream, and were not yet feeling the kick in the hotel dream.
The easiest way to think of this is at the very end. Ariadne is 4 levels deep in dreams. The throws herself out of the building in "limbo" and thus wakes up in the winter scene. In the winter scene, the building is crumbling, and she begins to fall. This allows her to wake up in the hotel scene. There, the elevator is falling, so she wakes up in the van. The van is falling, so she then wakes up on the airplane.
So if you do not work from the deepest level to the shallowest level, the series of kicks will not work. If they were that far deep in dreams, their airplane could have fallen out of the sky and they would have been none the wiser!
Hans Zimmer has yet to not impress me with nothing but quality soundtracks. That being said, the story is completely original, fantastic acting, special effects were outstanding, and cinematography was pretty darn good. This movie gets a 5/5 easily. Trying to explain dreams will definitely leave some logic flaws, but every movie will have them...and usually there are a lot more than these. My question is how do they not get a kick from a van that is rolling down a hill? That's quite the ride.
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