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Written by Zombie Boy

Tuesday, 20 July 2010 23:18

Imagine that the technology existed to share a subconscious dream experience. Now imagine you could assemble a team to infiltrate a specific person’s dream and thieve information right out of their head. Kind of like Ocean’s Eleven meets Dreamscape meets The Bank Job meets The Matrix. Now take all that and stand it on its head: what if the purpose was to leave information behind; to seed a brain with the crystal of an idea that would germinate into a thought the victim would honestly believe was their own?

From the insidiously clever mind of Christopher Nolan comes Inception, his first all-original screenplay since his debut film, Following. Not only is it an all-original concept and script, but it is a screenplay that took him over eight years to create. And it shows. The ease with which the audience nestles into the complexities of the story shows the hand of a master craftsman, as do the actual mechanics of the shot film. This is a film that challenges the audience without alienating them, and it is high time we have a thinking man’s summer blockbuster.

Call me crazy, but this scene made me think of the hallway fight in Old Boy

Right off the bat, I want to disabuse any notion that this is a special effects film. I know the trailers play that angle hard, and SFX certainly do play a large role, but Inception is more about what happens inside your brain than what comes in through your eyes. By the time you get to the full-on visual manipulations you will be so wrapped up in the story that you won’t be worrying about what was green-screened or who was doing lots of wire work.

Also, while it is sci-fi, it is sci-fi in the way Donnie Darko is sci-fi. It takes place in the real world, not some Dystopian future society, and there are no asinine gadgets to familiarize yourself with. The gear the team uses to enter the shared-dream state is a low-tech aesthetic, even slightly biological in appearance. Keeping it organic grounds the movie, and allows you to focus on the characters and plot, and also allows you to marvel at the special effects without becoming jaded by them. I was literally pitching and rolling in my seat during the zero-gravity hotel sequence, I was so invested in the action.

What also helps to ground the story is Nolan’s utter disinterest in explaining the physicality of dream-sharing process. This was a very shrewd move. So much time is spent on the metaphysics: creating the architecture of the dream; traversing the different levels; the kicks and death-exits (you'll find out about those in the film); and avoiding the hideous limbo state that getting bogged down on the exact hows would have, well, bogged down the movie. The acting and visuals sell us on the concept: we don’t need a blow by blow.

Speaking of acting, what a goddamn cast. Leo is Leo, you don’t need any info on him, but when did the little dude from 3rd Rock from the Sun turn into a full-fledged man? He stole every scene he was in, as far as I am concerned. Ellen Page and Marion Cotillard are both fantastic in their wildly divergent roles, and have a really tense, oddly sexy scene together. Tom Berenger is always a treat, and Ken Watanabe and Dileep Rao (making sort of a name for himself, having also been in Drag Me To Hell and Avatar) round out the cast. But, ah, let us not forget Cillian Murphy, who turned what could have been a thankless bit part into a truly emotionally resonant story arc.

Watch out, ladies: he's brooding!

Wait: one thing about Leo, actually. His character has a butt-load of issues. Hell, his wife is named Mal for Christ’s sake. And when said wife does a horrible thing, the screaming pain on his face made me ache inside. One of my few regrets about this film is that it didn’t linger more on that heartbreaking scene. The man was putting it all out there, folks.

Here's the wily Brit with all the big ideas now.

So, I think I have successfully spoken at length about this movie without actually telling you any damned thing about it, so I will close by saying it is fantastic, a true visual feast as well as a strong workout for your brain. Put MC Escher on a Mobius Strip and pass him through the eye of Alfred Hitchcock and you’d have something almost as good as Inception. And I dare you not to tear your fucking hair out at the ending.

On a geeky side note, Ellen Page’s character, the “architect” of the dreams, whose job is basically to construct mazes and paradoxical staircases, is named Ariadne. Ariadne is the Greek character who helped Theseus escape the maze created by Daedalus at the behest of her father, King Minos.

SUPER SPOILER ALERT:

(seriously. if you haven’t seen the movie, stop goddamn reading)

Leo having just come off of Shutter Island kept throwing me off in this movie. The two characters just have way too damned much in common.

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Midnight Butterfly - I Concur

|98.246.191.xxx |2010-08-09 02:52:11

Man, I just saw this tonight and I loved it. Is Hollywood finally realizing that
smarter is better? (Well, I also saw Salt and I can tell you that the answer to
that is "no".) But Inception is so smart, so thrilling, with the special
effects serving the story and not the other way around, with ideas and
intelligence taking precedence over gunfights and car chases (though there are
plenty of those as well) and god forbid, stellar acting throughout, I feel like
I can be forgiven if I felt like I'd had some kind of revelation. The last time
I felt this way about a Hollywood blockbuster was...holy shit, Dark Knight. The
fight in zero-gravity reminded me of that first moment at the beginning of The
Matrix, when Trinity first leaps into the air in order to kick the crap out of
some hapless cop and there are audible "oohs" and "ahs"
throughout the audience. And somehow Nolan manages to never betray the rules he
has set up but instead only take you deeper into his world. Yeah, it was a
blast.

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