The first in a two-part blog series, this will attempt the explain why the 2010 Christopher Nolan film Inception is amazing, leaving out any plot/scene/character spoilers.
But let's clear one this up first. If you haven't seen Inception yet, it's because:
a) You don't normally see movies until they come out on DVD (This I can understand - only recently have I actually been making it out to theaters to see movies on the big screen more than once a year), or you don't have time to see movies very often,
b) You don't find sci-fi/mind-bender/paranormal/heist and/or action movies interesting,
c) You're put off by how much everyone seems to love the movie and the high expectations,
d) You're crazy.
All of these reasons (sans d) are acceptable, but I'm telling you right now - you need to drive to Blockbuster the day the DVD is released to rent it. Don't wait for Netflix to get it, go to Blockbuster and get it for yourself. If you really don't like going to blockbuster, drive to Target or wherever and buy the movie. Buy it.
And to clear something else up; I'm only writing this review so I wont feel guilty when I write the Spoiler Edition review. Because everything I love about Inception is more easily explainable when I can reference specific scenes or moments. The goal of this review is to get you to watch the movie, love it or not, then read my Spoiler Edition review and understand what I saw in the movie, intended or not.
Now that this is out of the way, I can begin my convincing.
In case you didn't realize, Inception is a science-fiction heist movie - heist, like The Italian Job or Ocean's 11. I know the trailers didn't really help to explain the plot, but it should have given you the idea that this film deals primarily with the idea of dreams - not the kind where you see yourself in the future, but the kind where you fall asleep and sky-dive or are chased by masked men or whatever you dream about in the wee hours of the morning.
Leonardo DiCaprio plays Dominic Cobb, a thief hired by corporations to steal secrets from rivals by entering their dreams, the unprotected subconscious. Towards the beginning of the movie, he is hired to preform an Inception - the opposite of their usual Extractions - that is, planting a foreign idea into someone's mind so they believe it is their own.
This, however, is more than I knew before going in to see the film. When deciding to force my parents to the theater one Monday night, all I knew was that everyone whose opinion mattered loved it, it had something to do with Dream Theory, and it was directed by the guy who did Batman Begins, The Dark Knight, and The Prestige (all movies I loved).
Dream Theory, in case anyone's wondering, is really just exploration into the purpose, meaning, and reason for dreams. When I say 'dream theory', though, I'm specifically thinking about Zhuangzi, a famous Chinese philosopher who wrote in his philosophy that he once dreamed he was a butterfly, flying in a field. When he awoke, he recalled the dream and thought "Am I a man dreaming I am a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming I am a man?" (for indeed, who are we to say one of the other?)
Dream Theory really isn't the plot of the movie, though it undoubtedly shows up, much to some people's displeasure (I refer to Orson Scott Card's review of the movie, though I don't entirely agree with him). The real plot of the movie is Cobb, DiCaprio's character, trying to return to his family. We're told during the course of the movie why he can't go back home, and what happened to Mal, his wife, so I wont spoil any of that. Instead, I'll say that anyone who isn't caught up in the magical realism of the sci-fi plot (stealing into someone's dream to plant an idea), will still enjoy the human emotion side of the plot (Cobb coming to terms with his own demons), and anyone will enjoy the inescapable stab at the fourth wall that all good films make.
One thing I particularly enjoyed about Inception was the simple, straight-forwardness of it. Yes, the movie is complex and multi-layered (both literally and figuratively), but Nolan keeps the story flowing so smoothly that, in my opinion, the audience doesn't have to think too deeply to understand what is going on. Of course, this movie does require the audience to use their brains, and you're going to spend a few hours in contemplation if you want to understand every point made in the movie, but during the movie I never once found myself wondering why something was working a certain way, how this or that worked, or deciding to ignore a seeming plot hole for the sake of suspending disbelief.
If you find the movie to be too complicated, you may be trying to read too much into it on the first go. That's one thing that makes this movie so great - multiple views give multiple impressions, insights, and so forth. I bought the script for the movie at Barnes and Noble a couple days ago, unable to purchase the actual movie yet (Hasn't come out yet), and saw some things reading through it that I hadn't noticed before. This makes it definitely a movie worth owning.
While multi-layered, insightful, and complex, Inception is, in essence, a fun movie. It's a action sci-fi, with gun-scenes and chase-scenes and unnecessary but totally cool special effects. Don't go to the movie expecting to have your mind blown - let that happen as a side effect.
There is possibly one bad thing I can say about the movie, and it's this: Cobb is, truly, the only real character. Walking away from the film, I was a bit perturbed to realize that I couldn't even remember anybody else's names (except for a few, which were repeated often). This annoyed me, because it meant that Nolan spent too much time giving us Cobb's story and the plot revolving around him and not enough making the other characters fleshed out and real. Good movies try not to let anyone, even a secondary, become too flat, and yet only one character (maybe two) in this film is truly three-dimensional.
This problem, in my opinion, didn't detract from the film (it's kind of fun to fill characters in on your own, isn't it?), and, in fact, is completely excusable given my theory on the movie as presented in my Spoiler Edition review. So watch the movie, try not to be too disturbed that Cobb seems to be stealing the show, then read that review to understand why it's totally OK.
The directing, in my opinion, is spot on in Inception, with Nolan showing us just enough to get the desired effect without giving us too much to have the effect wasted. No matter what you go to the movie to find, I promise you'll be pleasantly surprised.
And if this doesn't convince you to go rent Inception when it comes out, I don't know what will.
No comments:
Post a Comment