Inception
Made: 2010
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon Levitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe
Director: Christopher Nolan
Screenwriter: Christopher Nolan
Cinemintographer: Wally Pfister
Producer: Christopher Nolan
Mainstream Sci-Fi is such a mixed bag, any movie that dares to attract an audience with "out there" concepts has as many detractors as fans. From Matrix to Star Wars to Lord Of The Rings to Avatar, it’s a sure fire bet that these kinds of movies, even when they are good, are going to be killed with hype and criticism. But there is something marvelous about Inception, even if it can't achieve all of the goals it sets out to. A movie about creating inspiration through dreams is almost the perfect idea for a sci fi movie, and mixing it Christopher Nolan's direction and writing makes for a one of a kind experience. Given full financial freedom after The Dark Knight's success, this movie is Nolan at his most open and honest, shoving his crazy ideas down our collective throats.
A person's mind can always trace the genesis of an idea. This is the whole point of "inception", a process in this movie that is possible is the not too distant future. There are scenes that tell the viewer the rules of the dream game, in actuality you could symmetrically divide the movie in half between SETUP and FUFILLMENT throughout its two and a half hour length. The first half is playful and intriguing, like any Chris Nolan movie is, setting up characters and ideas that will soon grow into full effect, while the second half is the action packed fulfillment of these ideas. It’s not a movie that, thinks its ideas are its own though. Throughout Inception, there are obvious references to other films such as Quiz Show (Michael Caine's first scene mirrors Paul Scofield's), The Matrix (building the dream in a computeristic world), the TV show Lost (the flight from Sydney to Los Angeles), James Bond action (snow skiing down the mountain), Paprika (the breaking mirrors and hallways). The film explains itself a lot but it also includes the audience in in that way, kind of like how Hitchcock let the audience know who the villain was when the people in the movie didn't. It's no different than most Sci-Fi movies, take Blade Runner or Terminator for instance, constantly explaining as they go along what is happening.
The ensemble cast in Inception is top tier, and easy to forget how important it is to have people who can actually act play these roles. Leonardo DiCaprio plays Cobb as a lost soul, a man who has not a lot of hope about the future. The level of danger throughout the dream world is constantly enhanced by Cobb's haunted past, and his emotional arc anchors the film; it's DiCaprio’s truest performance to date. With Ellen Paige as Ariadne and a voice of reason, Joseph Gordon Levitt as his reliable partner Arthur, Ken Wantanabe as the financial backer, Marion Cotillard as a horrifying specter of a wife, the main cast is eloquently played out. It doesn’t hurt that Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy, Pete Postlethwaite and Michael Caine and many others also play their supporting roles with aplomb. On top of one of the greatest ensembles ever assembled for an action movie, this movie is laced with brilliant visuals and intelligent dialogue. The part where Arthur says "give me a kiss" is a highlight, and just one example of the movie's great with humor. Of course the characters also say lines like "when we wound up on the shore of our subconscious," which could be construed as pretentious.
The art of storytelling is what holds us in Inception, a screenplay 10 years in the making and its meticulous craft shows. The "revolving hallway" scene is one of the great action set pieces sets in movies, along with the never ending staircase paradox and the crumbling city of Limbo. An action/thriller with four levels of dreams (dream within a dream within a dream within a dream) is an insane concept for a movie. It hurts your brain to grasp at times but it's hardly mere entertainment. It’s not just that there are four dreams; they are layered and jumped between with the skill of a master story teller/director. Inception is also a movie obsessed with symmetry, hence the mathematical aspects that make rewatching such a joy. Upon inspection, one notices things like each dream layer has its own theme music, it all somehow makes sense, and two hours has zipped by. Dreams start in the middle, they say, well so does the plot of Inception. Kind of weird that it doesn't go into how Cobb got started in this line of work?
In the past, mainstream movies can't be as original as independent ones but lately that has changed in the 21st century. With the advent of the internet, ideas are exchanged more freely and people are more open to new ideas. Inception is only the beginning of the 21st century action genre getting more "cerebral", look at Prometheus, Cloud Atlas, etc. and you will see that bigger budgets are getting put into more universal ideas. Nolan has made this possible. He started of small in the late 1990's with Following and Memento, two clever and intriguing mysteries and slowly worked his way into comic book lore and bigger and bigger ideas. Inception is a great example of dreaming big in cinema. It’s funny how far Nolan has come in his first ten years but also impressive that he hasn't lost his audience he formed with his early work. The Dark Knight series and The Prestige and Following....these are obviously the work of a creative synthesizer no matter what his budget is. What Nolan has, like Spielberg, Scott or Hitchcock before him, is the ability to bring people along for the ride with him. Inception is a marvel of populist entertainment and I cherish movies this daring when they come along.