Film Review -- Inception

Inception
Director: Christopher Nolan; Writer: Christopher Nolan
Warner Bros. Pictures

Hey, so this was supposed to be up a while ago, while the movie was still number one at the box office and everyone was talking about it. But, unfortunately, I suffer from a serious and debilitating disease known as chronic laziness, which hampered my writing abilities. Apologies to my audience of one, and on to the review!

Inception is one of those movies that people who write about film have a lot of reasons to love. In part because it arrived in the middle of a summer season that has seen some fairly lousy blockbusters, and in part because it's unabashedly ambitious in an industry that increasingly puts out safe and boring films and assumes its audience is both retarded and gullible (see: Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore). Putting aside it's ambition for now, however, I found watching Inception to be the most entertaining two hours I've encountered at the movies this year.

Christopher Nolan here has crafted a remarkably tight, fast-paced action/heist film wrapped in a coating of intricate fantasy. I don't think the movie is particularly "deep" or "meaningful," but its plot is superbly constructed and the film expects its audience to be sharp. Whereas The Matrix, for example, required its audience to comprehend the simultaneous existence of two realities, Inception's storyline takes the audience on a trip through five of them. The basic premise that certain individuals can infiltrate the dreams of others and all of the rules that govern this process are dispensed with quickly and without time for extensive discussions of how this is all possible - one of many smart moves by Nolan, as the movie moves so quickly that the audience is simply forced to accept the rules at face value. Again, The Matrix this is not - Inception moves at a blazing pace, without any long pauses for exposition. To prevent this from becoming completely overwhelming, the film introduces Ellen Page as an audience surrogate, a newcomer to this whole world of dreaming. Page joins a fantastic cast, headed by Leonardo Dicaprio, as their characters attempt to plant an idea into the head of the heir to a giant corporation. Saying any more about the plot risks going into spoiler territory, but the story unfolds exactly like your typical heist movie, if your typical heist movie also included amazing action set pieces with fights in zero gravity and snowmobile combat. Dicaprio is solid in the lead role, but Marion Cotillard shines as his (SPOILER REDACTED). Overall, though, the acting is simply top-notch - Nolan integrates his regulars Cillian Murphy, Ken Watanabe, and (briefly) Michael Caine well with younger stars Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Ellen Page.

I've had the opportunity by now to read a good share of the critical responses to this film, and I think I'm probably somewhere in the middle of all the hype and backlash. I don't think that Nolan is insufferably pretentious and a giant hack, but I also don't believe that Inception is one of the greatest films of the modern era. I think Nolan has a powerful command of the basic concepts of story-telling (something surprisingly rare in Hollywood), an ability to write serviceable dialogue that moves the plot forward (ditto), and a very healthy amount of ambition (aaaaand ditto). This movie is not brilliant - as I said, a lot of the dialogue is merely serviceable (though it's occasionally sharp), and some of the exposition is a bit transparent - but it's extremely well-made and entertaining. I was on the proverbial edge of my seat for the entire duration, and the entire theatre was dead silent from the moment the movie started to the final scene (whereupon everyone uttered a collective groan due to the SPOILER REDACTED). Ultimately, I think the biggest reason I enjoyed this movie is that it didn't treat me like I was a child or a moron - it assumed I could follow a complicated plot that required a large degree of suspension of disbelief and complete focus (and Nolan has made sure that any functioning member of society should be able to follow it with relative ease). I think the reason I enjoyed Inception is because it's how every movie should be made.

Grade: A