Inception is the latest film to burst out of the brilliant mind-womb of Christopher Nolan, the man who brought us such classics like The Dark Knight, Memento, The Prestige (my least favorite Nolan film that I have seen), and Insomnia. With Inception, Nolan's aim would appear to be to gently pry into the viewer's mind while at the same time throwing out some truly wowing material for him or her to chew on. In Inception Nolan creates his own surreal complex universe where it is possible for a group of people to infilitrate a persons mind and extract ideas from it. What the ideas extracted would be used for is never fully explained but I'd have to guess they are either given to rivals, used against said person, or sold to the highest bidder.
Leonardo Dicaprio stars as Lou Cobb; the leader of a group of extractors consisting of Joseph Gordon Levitt as Arthur, Tom Hardy as Eames, Dileep Rao as Yusuf, and Ellen Page as newcomer Ariadne. Cobb dreams of being reunited with his kids and so takes on one last job for businessman Saito; who is played by Ken Watanabe; with the promise that if he succeeds he will be given a passport back to his kids. There's a twist of course, Saito doesn't want Cobb and his team to extract an idea but to instead plant one in the mind of corporate rival Robert Fischer; played by Cilian Murphy. This new process is called Inception.
The film takes a great deal of time to explain the laws of dreams and what can happen in one, and the rest of the film goes to work displaying these laws in action, and boy is it fun to see how they are applied. There are several parts where most will find their jaws agape at the marvels unfolding before their eyes, but when jaws aren't open, brows will be furrowed as the viewer attempts to make sense of this complex and fascinating world that Nolan has woven together with Imagination as its glue.
That is quite possibly the biggest achievement of this film, not that it is one of his most complex, but that the universe created is something akin to what George Lucas did when he created Star Wars, except that Inception's is a thousand times more beautiful and complex.
Unfortunately this film, like any other, has its faults too. The weakest part of the film was it's attempt at creating an emotional element for the character of Cobb, whose wife has died and now haunts his subconscious like a jealous demon. The attempt is a weak one at best and the film spends alot of time on it, even though there isn't much reason for the audience to really care about Cobbs backstory.
The film is strongest at the beginning when it is explaining the laws of the dream universe and when the team first infilitrates Fischer's mind, but as they dive deeper and deeper into his subconscious the more muddy and complex the film gets. It's just about impossible for viewers not to tune out for a few seconds here and there. It's important that if you see this film you resist that urge to tune out, your overall understanding of this masterpiece depends on it. Like Shutter Island, This is one film that works best when the viewer is constantly thinking. While the film is complex, it's not impossible to understand what is going on as long as your paying complete attention to it.
Leo has already proved that he is a more than capable actor, so it's no surprise that he pulls off the role of Cobb effortlessly. His right hand man Arthur ,played by Joseph Gordon Levitt, is also a superbly well played one. Arthur gets some of the best screen time and one of the best moments in the film, a zero-G tumbling disorienting fight sequence in a hotel hallway. Joseph Gordon levitt easily emerges as another bright and shining star in the film
While its ability to wow moviegoers is a huge achievement, Inception lacks real heart or meaning, and if it wasn't for that the film would have gotten a strong Better than Sex rating from me. With Inception, Nolan is back in full form as he takes moviegoers on a thrilling journey into the world of dreams, but the lack of a compelling narrative ends up hurting the film in the end. Nolans universe is dazzling, i just wish his story was as dazzling as his universe is.
4/5 FULL PRICE!!!
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