Inception Rant and Review

First things first. If you haven't seen Inception yet, drop what you are doing, stop reading, and go see it. Walk in with an open mind and willingness to take in a ride, a story that will, hopefully, blow your freaking mind. Hopefully. Unless you walk in, wanting to be disappointed, you will have your breath taken from you. Forcefully. With a mallet.

When Inception is finished with it's theatrical run, it deserves to be at the top of the All-Time Box Office list. It does. But it won't. It doesn't have that flashy gimmick of 3-D to raise the ticket price, nor is it coming off the passing of a famous actor. I didn't see any Hobbits or Wizards, and there was no alien trying to get home. It doesn't have the things that audiences will go see in droves over and over again. It just isn't that kind of movie. Piranha 3-D, er, Step Up 3-D, on the other hand... People are going to have to think on this film, remember this and that, try and figure things out for themselves, and, god forbid, decide for themselves where the dream ends, and where it begins.

There are people who are going to walk into this movie, like they do others, wanting to hate the movie. They can take a number of different reasons (director, writer, actor, story, studio, promotion, friends opinions), what have you, and they decide that it's going to suck. So let me try and destroy what perceptions you might have about this, before you decide that it sucks.

Inception doesn't have the most original storyline, it is, for the most part, a heist film (but in this case, it's a reverse-heist film). I happened to see some similarities between this and The Matrix (excessive slo-mo), The Thirteenth Floor (switching between realities), and even Nolan's own Memento (switching from one part to another, back and forth, back and forth). There are other reviewers who have pointed these things out, but as I step back and take a look at it, it isn't what it mimics, nor what it learns or takes from previous special effect laden pieces, but what it does with it.

Take Jurassic Park (I know, I know, I'm going back a few years for you youngin's). I'm sure that I could walk in and say that it's like any of the 30-40 some odd films made back between the 50's and 80's about giant creatures or dinosaurs terrorizing humans. Take any action movie made in the last 10 years or so, go ahead, I'll let you pick out your favorite one, I'm pretty sure it has some things it takes from Die Hard (from 1988), which in turn might have some ties with The Towering Inferno (it's in a Skyscraper), which in turn has a little film called King Kong (with another skyscraper! Holy crap!) which in trun goes right back to Jurassic Park (DINOSAURS!!!). To generalize a movie by saying it's similar to another is one thing. To slam it because of this is just juvenile and unappreciative. I loved 28 Days Later, despite the fact that it combines Night of the Living Dead, Dawn of the Dead, and Day of the Dead into 2 hours. Don't believe me? Take another look.

With Inception, Christopher Nolan isn't remaking The Matrix, we certainly aren't logging into a computer mainframe where we can be anything that we want to our hearts content, and, unlike the Matrix where you could tell the difference between reality and the computer world, everything takes place in reality (albeit someone's dream), but reality nonetheless. Frankly, the similarities end there. No one though seems to question The Matrix, which is far from an original story. In fact, it takes the Hero's Journey to a different level. And really, if anyone wants to talk original stories, I want to hear what they consider an original story (and I swear if someone starts talking about the stories in the Bible, they're gonna be hit with a very thick book next time I see them).

Let's see, I heard this some time ago, I think it goes: “Jack from Titanic and Juno meet up with the kid from Third Rock from the Sun and the Scarecrow in the director of The Dark Knights new movie” or something like that. Granted, before anyone really knew the storyline, this cold be an obvious laughable depiction of the film, but it is far from the movie, and further from the cheap descriptions of the Actors and Actresses in the film.

I heard someone the other day slamming it because it had Leonardo DiCaprio in it, so they wouldn't go see it. My mother has a similar problem with Kathy Bates. My dad took her to go see Misery and so since then, every time my mom sees Kathy Bates in a movie, she thinks of Misery and she never recovers. Same goes for Javier Bardem. Perhaps these people still see DiCaprio as a teen heartthrob that girls go ga-ga over. It's possible. But when I look at DiCaprio, I look over at his career of movies and what he has done and I'm going, “but he's an awesome actor. Have you seen The Departed? Shutter Island? Hell, how about What's Eating Gilbert Grape?” He's come a ways from Titanic. The same goes for Ellen Page. Check out a little movie called Hard Candy. She's not Juno. She's not Kitty Pride. And the kid from Third Rock from the Sun? Joseph Gordon-Levitt, well, ignore G.I. Joe (as everyone should), but check out Brick, Mysterious Skin, or Stop Loss. He's a gifted actor with incredible range. Cilian Murphy? 28 Days Later, Breakfast on Pluto, and Sunshine. Granted, it'd been a while since I saw Ken Wantanabe. I remember first seeing him in Mortal Kombat. Oh yea. Shang Tsung, baby.

Enough of the rant.

So about the movie. I'll make this short, as I'm sure most of you have been wanting to move along eventually with your lives, and/or you've heard about the story from another person.

DiCaprio and Gordon-Levitt are a couple of thieves, hired to venture into others minds and steal vital information that that person could have locked up in their brains. You could call it Cracking Dreams. They are then hired by Wantanabe to do the opposite, implant a memory into Murphy's mind that would cause the downfall of a rival competitor. DiCaprio begins building up a team that includes Page as an Architect to create levels for the crew to work in while inside the victim's dream (sort of like a video game level designer). Within the dream, like real dreams, time moves much faster, or slower, depending on where your perspective is from. 5 minutes in reality is 60 minutes in the dream. When the story goes into other levels of dreaming, this increases exponentially. 5 min. reality = 60 minutes dream A; 5 minutes dream A = 60 minutes dream B, and so on and so on. All of this is explained and the audience is introduced to this effect at the start of the film. Those who follow along shouldn't have any troubles. Shouldn't being the operative word. I had to stop and think about it all for a second before I caught up to what just happened. There's more explanation and depth in the movie, but I'll let the movie tell you what else is going on.

Nolan tells everything in this movie very literally, yet another complaint I've heard from some reviewers. And really, I don't blame him. Audiences are stupid. They don't want to have to interpret everything themselves, otherwise they'd be the ones making the movies. Keeping a complicated, multi-layered story like this simple keeps it from falling completely out of range of the average theatre-goer. This means that less people on a Friday night will walk out of the theatre going “huh?” When things are locked up, they literally are locked up, in a safe, with a code, that is well guarded, by men with guns with bullets. Fortunately, if you die, you don't “die” die. You just wake up.

The action scenes are cut tight, but never confuse the audience as to what exactly is going on with who and where, initially. When they venture into Murphy's mind, and things begin to get complicated, the action opens up a little more and things get a little more sci-fi. The hotel hallway fight is simple, but high on the list of favorite scenes. As a filmmaker, I picked apart just how they did everything that they did, and sans CG effects, everything looked easily doable...for a certain price. A hallway rotates with people fighting, gravity disappears and everyone floats, and a van seems to fall forever. Don't worry, it makes sense in the movie. And if you are still confused when it's done, you didn't pay attention.

The score is excellent, though fairly similar to Hans Zimmer's previous collaboration with Nolan, The Dark Knight. The single note horn is demanding and lets you know something major and huge is happening, similar to the single note that plays during The Joker's scenes in The Dark Knight. I expect a nomination for Zimmer come awards time.

The special effects are astounding, and don't seem like CG for the most part. True, the big things like cities crumbling and one city folding up over itself is obvious CG, it's the practical FX, or what appear to be practical FX that really stand out for me. There's no green hue or transformation sequence when stepping in and out of a dream world, it just happens as it happens when you are awoken suddenly from your sleep.

While the performances won't win any awards in my book, the screenwriting is well done. Nolan shines in piecing together on page, just as he does in bringing this piece of work to life. For him I see some writing awards coming his way, possibly not directing, but who knows. I could be totally wrong.

Overall, Inception is a film that you should see with no emotion at all. If you tell yourself that you are going to hate it before you walk into the theatre, go get your money back and buy a book to read. If you think you're going to love it, don't know much about it, or are just a little curious, I promise you'll have a good time. Just don't talk throughout the picture like the couple that sat behind me and whispered back and forth about what was going on and if they missed something.

Nolan pushes the bar of competent, breathtaking cinema just a little more further than what he did with The Dark Knight. He proves that you can have a smart, intelligent summer blockbuster that (hopefully) audiences will see again and again. I would love to see this in IMAX, if it were avaliable in my area. I'm sure it would be incredible.

Inception receives 4 ½ out of 5 stars.

Trailers shown during this showing (and a brief thought on them):

The Adjustment Buerau – Looks wild. Reminds me of Dark City meets the Matrix, but without all the Kung Fu and mental magic.

Piranha 3-D – 3D should die, or at least no longer be used when it is unwarranted or as a gimmick. I understand that it's an exciting new breath of air that brings people to the theatre, but Fuck you gimmicks. Avatar, Toy Story, How to Train Your Dragon, they got it right, and they didn't just throw it on as an afterthought.

The Expendables – Should be the greatest movie ever when it's released. I will hurt you if you don't agree.

Dinner for Schmucks – Looks pretty good, apparently a remake of a french film, but I fear it can turn bad and stupid very, very quickly. Time will tell.

Salt – Angelina Jolie can kick my ass and make out with me any day of the week. If I ever become a famous actor or director, I'm going to have to write something so I can co-star with her where we make out for at least half the film. Just has to be done. Oh, and Kurt Wimmer wrote the script for Salt. So that's good.

Devil – New from M. Night Shayamalan? Looks good. Going back to a small environment for scares. I hope this works out better than his recent films as I do like what he has done, but they just fail too easily.

Due Date – At first, I thought this was remaking Planes, Trains, and Automobiles (I just jinxed that, didn't I?) but i'm certain anything with Zack Galifinakus in it is golden. Plus Robert Downey Jr.

The Town – New film from Ben Affleck. I liked Gone Baby Gone, and this looks like it's got the same feel. I really look forward to it, but feel the trailer ruined a lot of the film for me. I could be wrong when it comes out.