Inception

(2010)

Directed by

Christopher Nolan

Review by Todd Plucknett

Posted - 7/20/10

I must say that I have never seen anything quite like Christopher Nolan’s Inception. It is a dream that will challenge the audience to think deeper than most other blockbuster films. It has shades of The Matrix and other sci-fi mind-benders. Its ideas are intoxicating at times. It is a complete and astonishing world that Nolan has invented, and it is a trip that is worth getting lost in for two and a half hours.

I will not go into the plot too much. So much of the pleasure in watching this film is trying to piece together this complex puzzle, finding out what exactly is going on and if what we are seeing is reality or a dream. The principle characters work for a company that induces dreams in people, most of the time hired by corporations in attempt to extract information from the subject’s subconscious. Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a man grieving the death of his wife Mal (Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard), who died in the limbo state of a dream years before. He is trying to return home to the States, but they believe that he murdered her. With the help of his team, including “point man” Arthur (Joseph-Gordon-Levitt), the college “dream architect” Ariadne (Ellen Page), and Eames (Tom Hardy), the group embarks on a mission to help Saito (Ken Watanabe), a billionaire who is trying to take down a rival company led by Maurice Fischer (Pete Postlethwaite), who has recently died and left his business to his son Robert (Cillian Murphy). They invade Robert’s mind in attempt to find secrets to taking down his own business. In exchange, Saito will help Cobb get back into the country with his connections.

Ok, that is about as well as I can explain the plot. I assume that so much of the wonder is going to need to be revisited soon to try to find out exactly what was going on. Nolan’s story is so complex. There are dreams and then dreams within dreams several times over. Sometimes, Cobb’s subconscious takes over another person’s dream, and the vision of Mal dominates it and attempts to crash the dream sequence. The rules in the dreams are some of the detractors, though. If one gets hurt in a dream, the pain is real. If that person dies, however, then they wake up. That is if they are not highly sedated, in which case one will be cast into a limbo state (mentioned earlier), which will hold them for an indefinite amount of time. This is where Cobb and Mal were stuck for some 50 years in a city that their imaginations created through memories. Also, five minutes in reality is like an hour in a dream, 10 hours within the next dream, and that number keeps multiplying as the levels go on. The term “inception” refers to an art of implanting an idea into someone else’s mind, which is viewed as impossible by most. I am sure that this all makes sense in Nolan’s mind, but for someone just thrown right into the middle of the action, it takes a while for it to all condense into rationality. Luckily, Ariadne asks all the right questions, like the graduate student she is, which helps put everything we don’t understand into perspective.

The cast in the film is one of the main appeals. Leonardo DiCaprio is superb in his lead role, having a lot of the same quirks as Teddy Daniels in the early 2010 movie Shutter Island. Marion Cotillard is good, and the main extractor of emotion. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is great as usual. Ken Watanabe is always good to see. Tom Hardy and Ellen Page steal most of the movie, which are basically the only two who I did not expect that from. Cillian Murphy is fine. Oscar-winner Michael Caine, Tom Berenger, and Pete Postlethwaite make brief appearances. The cast is what keeps the film clicking. Their conviction to telling Nolan’s dream keeps us all interested throughout.

Now, this film definitely has its flaws. The first half hour or so seems completely pointless to the rest of the movie. We are thrown into some huge, loud, messy action scene that is supposed to be like how we are all dropped into a dream mid-swing and expected to catch on right away to what is going on. The scene was an audition of sorts for Saito to test Cobb and his crew to see if they were worthy of taking on his task. It was an interesting idea, but this particular dream was a mess. This type of issue is spread throughout the film. There are way too many action scenes and gunshots. The sound editing is great, much like it was in The Dark Knight, but it is just too loud and too persistent. The score is a huge, booming score, which works for most of the film, except when the quieter scenes needed something more touching. The rest of the film technically and artistically is top notch. The cinematography and art direction are astounding. The visuals are mind-blowing; particularly the Matrix-esque hallway scene where Arthur is being thrown around by the dreamer’s subconscious and the entire dream world is being rotated on its axis.

Now, when this film is at its most coherent and intelligent, it is as engaging as any movie I have seen this year. When it is indulgent and confusing, the audience feels detached. This may be because we still have almost no idea who these characters are and what drives them, with the exception of Cobb. It is the ideas and dreams that we get caught up in, so when we are lost, there is nothing to hold us in its grasp. This does not happen too often, however, seeing how most of it is completely compelling and at the very least intriguing.

Trying to piece this film together is like Muholland Dr. in a way. It is possible to unlock all the mysteries and payoffs, but it requires more than one viewing. It is not as incoherent as Inland Empire, but its ambition and imagination rivals it. The Matrix is a great comparison. We are basically just dropped fully into someone else’s dream and asked to try to find our way out. It is an amazing trip that should be taken. Even though I cannot yet hail this as a masterpiece, I can say that it is a somewhat vital viewing for anyone who is a fan of these kinds of fractured films. With time, this could be among the best films to come out in 2010. As for right now, it is just a trippy big-budget blockbuster with a brain, which is all you can really ask of a film like this. See it, and get lost for a while.

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