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Rated PG-13 (Sequences of Violence and
Action Throughout)
Running Time: 2 Hours & 28 Minutes
Cast-
Leonardo DiCaprio-Dom Cobb
Joseph Gordon-Levitt-Arthur
Ellen Page-Ariadne
Tom Hardy-Eames
Ken Watanabe-Saito
Cillian Murphy-Robert Fischer Jr.
Marion Cotillard-Mallorie 'Mal' Cobb
Dileep Rao-Yusuf
Michael Caine-Miles
Tom Berenger-Peter Browning
Pete Postlethwaite-Maurice Fischer
Lukas Haas-Nash
Tai-Li Lee-Tadashi
Directed by Christopher Nolan
 |
| One of the finest action scenes ever committed to film. |
‘There's one thing you should know about
me. I specialize in a very specific type of security…subconscious security.’
With the exception of a handful of films, many of this summer’s releases have
either been forgettable or outright disappointments. Now, Christopher Nolan
unleashes his sci-fi thriller “Inception” and it is nothing short of a
mind-blowing cinematic experience. His usual trademarks—which include
non-linear storytelling and psychological themes—have come to define the
British auteur's work, making him one of the most acclaimed filmmakers of our time.
1996’s “Following” was his feature debut but it wasn’t until the cult hit
“Memento” in 2000 that he started gaining fame. Since then he’s proved
unstoppable. 2008's “The Dark Knight” was pretty much guaranteed to make big
bucks at the worldwide box office yet no one could have predicted the impact it
would have on the superhero genre. Nolan’s latest requires two things that are
sorely lacking in today’s audience: attention and the willingness to actually
think. This is the only way that you will understand the film but even then you
still won’t grasp all the nuances, at least not on a first viewing. Is it too
smart for the mainstream viewer? No, absolutely not and for the most part this
is the director’s most linear work by far. Despite the copious amounts of
action scenes, Nolan is not here to provide mere entertainment. He wants us to
discuss and analyze everything about his film and I have no doubt in my mind
that after the end credits roll, people will dissect every scene for years to
come. In creating a wildly original and difficult idea, he has exceeded all of
our expectations.
In the near future, a new type of
corporate espionage has emerged where people skilled in the art of 'extraction'
invade the dreams of the rich and powerful in order to steal their secrets and
sell them to the highest bidder. The best is Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and
his point man, Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) but after a botched extraction
inside the mind of Japanese businessman Saito (Ken Watanabe), they are forced to
go on the run. Unfortunately, Saito confronts them and reveals the he knew what
they were trying to do as it was all an audition for a special job he had in
mind. He wants Cobb to perform an 'inception' where he will plant an idea into
the mind of Robert Fischer Jr. (Cillian Murphy), the son of a late corporate
rival. If the job is a success, Saito will pull some strings to allow Cobb to
return home to his children in the United States. Although an inception is
believed to be impossible, Cobb is adamant that he can do it because he has
done it before. With Arthur, he gathers a team that includes Ariadne (Ellen
Page), the architect that will construct the world of the dream, Eames (Tom
Hardy), a forger that can assume any identity within a dream, and Yusuf (Dileep
Rao), a chemist who will produce a powerful enough compound that will allow the
team to go deep enough into the subconscious to plant the idea. However, Cobb
is haunted by images of his deceased wife, Mallorie (Marion Cotillard), which
puts extreme risk on both the mission and the team.
“Inception” is incredibly difficult to
describe in words but in rough, simple terms it boils down to being a heist
film. The first half establishes the rules of the dream-world and our anchor is
Ariadne. Anything is possible in constructing the dream, where the laws of
reality and physics can be subverted. However, the more you manipulate the
dream, the more that person’s 'projections'—physical representations of the
subconscious—notice and try to drive you out, much as a white blood cell drives
out foreign objects in your body. Dying in the dream merely wakes a person up
but as you go deeper into the mind, death ends up trapping you in some sort of
limbo, a state where you can no longer discern what is and what isn’t real.
Escape is only possible through sheer willpower. In order to keep a person in
touch with reality, he or she will hold a personal ‘totem’ that serves as a
reminder that what they are seeing in the mind is not real. To escape from the
dream, you need a ‘kick’ which is a stimulus that ranges from a simple smack to
the face to falling into a tub of cold water (or a rain drenched river). What
happens outside of the dream is manifested in logical ways such as falling
through the air produces a weightless environment. While all this is told to
the viewer, it never feels as if Nolan is pandering to the lowest common
denominator and you do have to use that brain of yours to grasp what is being
shown, especially when there are dreams-within-dreams all interacting with each
other. Aspects of time and reality are also explored as mere hours in the real
world can span decades in the subconscious.
While all this can feel like a bunch of
psychological mumbo-jumbo, Nolan knows that the subconscious often harbors
guilt or regret and this provides the necessary emotional depth that allows the
viewer to identify what Cobb is going through. Due to an unknown tragedy that
the story slowly reveals, his wife Mallorie took her own life and Cobb feels
responsible. In a shared dream-state, the character's guilt uncontrollably
manifests as his two children (always without their faces revealed) or his
wife, who is locked away in a prison deep in his mind, but sometimes escapes to
disrupt and kill anyone shared in her husband’s subconscious. Perhaps the scene
that will invite the most intense scrutiny is the ending, which is left
ambiguous to the viewer. I won’t reveal what happens but it might leave some
viewers dissatisfied with the lack of proper closure. Still, not everything
needs to have a definitive ending in a pretty bowtie as some stories just work
better it leaves something to the imagination.
Always impressive is the cast that Nolan
manages to bring together for his films and he has assembled an excellent team
of thespians. It’s amazing how Leonardo DiCaprio has grown from being just
another pretty face to one of the most serious actors working today. As Dom
Cobb, the conflict his character must resolve is similar to Teddy Daniels from
Martin Scorsese's “Shutter Island.” Dom bears the full weight of his guilt like
Atlas holds up the heavens but he is unwilling to come to terms and face it. To
succeed in the job and see his children again, he has to confront why he did
what he did in order to move on. The rest of the cast deliver strong
performances, even if their roles aren’t as developed beyond their functions in
the story. Joseph Gordon-Levitt is the point man, Arthur, who shares a friendly
rivalry with the suave Eames, played by Tom Hardy. You may recognize him as
Praetor Shinzon from 2002's “Star Trek: Nemesis.” Ellen Page serves as our
window to how the dream-world operates as college student Ariadne. Cillian
Murphy's role as Robert Fisher Jr. provides one of the film's clever twists,
where Cobb’s team uses the strained relationship the character shares with his
father to fake his epiphany. Cobb’s deceased wife Mallorie is played by Marion
Cotillard, who is obsessed with trying to keep her husband trapped in limbo for
reasons unknown. Ken Watanabe is Saito, a greedy captain of industry who's out
to ruin another man’s life. Playing small roles are Michael Caine as Miles,
Cobb’s former mentor, and Tom Berenger as Robert’s godfather, Peter Browning.
The action in “Inception” can best be
described as bearing a similarity to “The Matrix.” The mind can apparently be
trained to mentally fight off invaders, which is manifested as gun-toting
mercenaries. There’s an intense car chase through a rain drenched street that
continues throughout the film but the highlight is by far the
heavily-advertised zero gravity fight between Arthur and Fisher’s projections.
By the end, Nolan is juggling four concurrent dream-states: the car chase,
Arthur in the hotel, the large shootout at a snowy base at the top of a
mountain, and the apocalyptic limbo that Cobb’s wife inhabits. Any other
director would’ve botched it but all of it comes together and feels in
sync—like a symphony. The use of CG is kept to an absolute minimum while Hans
Zimmer delivers with another excellent score.
“Inception” was released on July 16, 2010
in conventional and IMAX theaters. Reception has been positive with 86% on
Rotten Tomatoes. Barring a few contrarians (like Armond White), critics called
it ‘smart, innovative and thrilling…that rare summer blockbuster that succeeds
viscerally as well as intellectually.’ In his review, Roger Ebert writes that
‘the movies often seem to come from the recycling bin these days: sequels,
remakes, franchises. Inception does a difficult thing. It is wholly original,
cut from new cloth, and yet structured with action movie basics so it feels
like it makes more sense than (quite possibly) it does.’ Christopher Nolan
loves making films and the reason why people love him is because he engages the
audience in an intelligent manner while his detractors just fumble around
struggling to grasp his concepts. He is not here to provide just entertainment
but to make you think and this is why I watch movies, because it is not enough
to just throw millions of dollars at a bunch of CG effects. A film should make
you dissect what the director is trying to convey. That’s not to say that
there’s no place for mindless flicks but there’s a reason why a feature like
“Inception” is critically acclaimed. With that in mind, run and go see
“Inception” because I doubt anyone would come as close to exploring dreams the
way Christopher Nolan has. With Hollywood plagued by unoriginality and obsessed
with making a profit, this is the only man left who is willing to take the
risks necessary to tell an engaging story.
Final Rating: 5 out of 5
"Dreams feel real while we're in
them. It's only when we wake up that we realize something was actually
strange."
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