Review: 4.5 out of 5
To all of you people fanatical about film,
Kbon is now at it again. It has not been long since I reviewed Prototype, but I always wanted to take a chance in going through another item that dares pass my keen judgement. I just never had time. This, in particular, is the one movie I was intending to use before I watched A-Team. Well, today folks the film I am going to review is by Christopher Nolan, Director of The Dark Knight and The Prestige. Yes, it's Inception. Nolan and his younger brother, Johnathan, are geniuses when it comes to making Hollywood blockbusters. I don't need to mention anymore credits as their status as filmmakers are more painted on cash notes and worldwide than any word on the street. Oh, what the heck, Christopher has been nominated and won many Academy, Satellite and Empire Awards, notably for winning Best Director, Best Original Screenplay and more. He now has the next Batman film in development while adapting a whole twist on the Man of Steel everyone knows, Superman.
The newest contender in the film world introduced his idea of dreams to Warner Brothers in 2001, which started with an 80-paged treatment. Christopher then decided he was not ready to produce something at this kind of scale. I understand this due to how grand a concept it can actually be once you start talking about the mind. My question is does it live up to it's expectations as does, say The Dark Knight? Well, I have little anxiety towards Nolan's works and Inception borders on an entire new level of The Matrix. In short, this guy knows exactly what he's doing. Recruited in Nolan's team of actors is Leonardo DiCaprio who did films such as Shutter Island who plays extractor, Mr. Cobb, tasked with stealing dreams. He leads a team of extractors to perform a process called inception; store an idea in a subject's mind while unconscious. A pretty insane length to rob an item, don't you think? Maybe, but you got to love the odds with this. Imagine planting a suggestion into your teacher's head and convincing them of giving you straight A's. That would be cool. So, what is the plot?
Inception has a total of 148 minutes and was made by Nolan's own studio, Syncopy Films, and Legendary Pictures. This was distributed by Warner Brothers. Mr. Cobb is first shown on the beach, waking up to find an old man who describes a symbol, a spinning top, which is the perfect indicator of whether he is sleeping or not. Cobb, with his right-hand man, Arthur, (Joseph Gordon Levitt) embark on a mission within the mind of Japanese business man, Saito (Ken Watanabe) via drug inducement methods. The mission becomes awry thanks to Mal (Marion Corillard), a formidable woman always ruining missions and who poses a threat against Cobb. It appears this was a test, forcing Cobb to help Saito convince Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy) in terminating his rival's empire, father of Robert, Maurice Fishcer (Pete Postlethwaire). In return for the mission's success, Cobb will be free to visit America and see his children. He drafts in Eames (Tom Hardy), the forger who can alter his form within dreams, Ariadne (Ellen Page), the architect in charge of building dream worlds and Yusuf (Dileep Rao), a chemist who specializes in sedatives that causes these mental projections to occur. With a team assembled, they face danger in every corner and death in this realm could result in the mind to enter a relapse: being lost forever in-between fantasy and reality.
The Good:
Alright, now that we sunk deep into our creators' madness, I got a few more things I got to say about Inception. The strengths is down to construction. Nolan, where have you been in my whole life? This is stupendous, not only has our writer/producer/director has got everything down to the cast, he's got an intelligent script and mesmerizing visuals courtesy of Wally Pfister. The drama creates urgency making you realize no matter how precise your skills are or how clever you can be, anything can go wrong. Brilliant acting plus a moving score by Hans Zimmer provided that unsettling build up. My favourite is the hotel scene where Arthur battles henchmen while escaping his team in a floating sequence. It will be memorable and is really breathtaking to watch. Nolan has obviously worked on this for a long time as the whole story is broken into layers split in the shape of an onion that connects like a domino effect. Of course, it does have some low points.
The Bad:
Unsurprisingly, this feature does not have many downsides. However, every watcher of Nolan's films knows his tendency to confuse audiences. Many can be a bit more than baffled at how well crafted his multi-strand plots are. It did the same to a friend and he almost slept near the bitter end of the movie. Me, being the film buff I am prevented this and I continued to watch. I got to admit though, I did pull a "What the--?", a couple times but it all made sense to me eventually. Another defect is the pacing is slow and quite daunting, it makes you lose sight of what Cobb's motive for the mission are? Finally, the main conflict against Mal as we learn in the close of the first Act that she's merely an avatar of Cobb's late wife is gotten rid of too easy. It would have been great if she had more screen time to fill her presence as someone imposing. I believe the actress, Marion, had potential and would have been more suited better as the film's villain if she was given more opportunities to be shown more of her character. At least she had enough for exposition but she felt a bit flat.
Overall:
Inception was a terrific film and is, believe it or not, one of the best films of this year. I can't wait until it hits DVD and Blu-ray release. My advice to anyone who goes to see a film like this, go watch it in IMAX theatres. I didn't have a chance to do that but it is worth the experience. This is by far the most fantastic use of mind blowing action since The Matrix or even Equilibrium. While those gratifying pieces built the foundations of imaginary settings, Nolan beats them by looking at the minor details that distinct them from this.
- Written by Kbon
