Christopher Nolan has been directing some of my favorite movies of the 2000s. I loved Memento, even the second time. I've been reading comics since 1991, so I was extremely glad for what he's done to the Batman franchise with Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. The Prestige was the best supernatural mystery featuring magicians I saw that year (and yes, that includes The Illusionist). I even liked Insomnia, even though he didn't write it. This year, he blew everything away with Inception.
It feels like M.C. Escher had a baby with Philip K. Dick, and this baby was raised by Danny Ocean. Part sci-fi, part magical realism, part caper, and all awesome. After seeing it twice, I feel like I get it enough where I can write about it and it won't be utter gibberish.
The first time I saw Inception it was the weekend after it opened, and the theater was packed. Normally, I hate sitting within the first 20-30 rows of a theater (I know, I'm a stickler), but I sat in the fourth row with my fiancee and we watched it anyway. The second time was just this past weekend; it was less packed, but I still wasn't able to get my optimum seat. Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed both viewings.
I studied film in college, so I'm very much of the mindset that movies are best when they're engaging as well as thought-provoking. Nolan is able to balance a totally insane plot in a rational way. He explains certain things (some critics have said too much), but it's necessary. The viewer would have virtually no way to keep up with the story without the explanations. In reality, very little of the history of their technology is explained; they just explain how it works once you're in the dream.
I'm getting a little ahead of myself. To fully talk about the movie, especially to those who may not have seen it, I should explain a little about what's going on. In the world of Inception a technology exists that lets people share dreams. This leads to an illegal practice of sharing dreams to extract secret information; essentially, master thieves called extractors steal secrets right from your head. The plot follows Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), two talented thieves, an expert extractor and an ingenious architect. Cobb is plagued by his past, and Arthur is just looking towards the next job. When an opportunity arises that Cobb can't pass up, he must organize a group of dreamers: An architect even better than Cobb (Ellen Page); a forger who can assume identities of others in dreams (Tom Hardy); a chemist to design the perfect sedative to create all the dream levels they need (Dileep Rao); their client (Ken Watanabe); and their unwilling subject (Cillian Murphy). Cobb's secrets come out of his subconscious with a vengeance as the team tries to pull off the perfect heist in reverse: inception. Planting an idea in a subject's mind is more difficult than removing information, and they must face dangers and dream levels they haven't seen before to complete the job.
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Article comments
1 - doug m
Are you saying with your title that people are scared to dream the way Jaws caused people not to want to go in the ocean?
Haven't seen the movie so I didn't read the review.
2 - Kyle Allkins
Kind of, I guess. Mostly, I think what Jaws did was change how people thought of it; it's practically automatic to hear the impending Jaws theme when you're swimming, even in a regular pool.
I think Inception was able to show dreaming in a new way that opened a lot of discussion and consideration from people who saw it.
I think the review is pretty spoiler-free, but I can understand wanting to see the movie without preconceptions. If you see it, I hope you enjoy it!
3 - chemathis
Poorly chosen title, but I loved your review.