Amazing. Great. Cutting-Edge. Ground Breaking. Wow. That should validate the movie and convince you to go. If you’re like me, you’ll stop reading this review and any other post about Inception, turn off the TV every time you see an ad for it, and go check out the film for yourself knowing as little of the story as you can. I knew the gist of the movie by seeing some early footage that Christopher Nolan presented during WonderCon a few months before but other than that, I went in to the movie with an open mind and loved almost every part of it. I promise this review will not have any spoilers so let’s dive in.
Amazing. Great. Cutting-Edge. Ground Breaking. Wow. I just had to say it again. Let’s start with the premise that you would get from the synopsis and/or trailers and ads. Inception is about dreams and a very special group of people who can manipulate these dreams. You quickly learn that the dream is less about the visuals and more about the feel. You feel this movie. Along with the amazing imagery and visuals, you feel this movie through Christopher Nolan’s directing as he takes your emotions and has his way with them. The movie focuses on one character’s dream and sets it up as a mission so our lead character played by Leonardo DiCaprio has to assemble his dream team (sorry for the pun).
L to R: Dileep Rao, Tom Hardy, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, and Ken Watanabe
It’s interesting…the names of the characters aren’t too important in this film. I’m not sure if they knew that the star power would outweigh the characters, but that’s what happened for me. It doesn’t matter though, because this whole world is created for you and the characters are each very well played and they truly draw you in with their performances. So, throughout the review, I’ll refer to the actors’ names and not the characters’ names. Leonardo DiCaprio enlists his long-time partner, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, teams up with a known acquaintance Tom Hardy, and teaches a newcomer to the game of dreams, Ellen Page. Ellen Page is our audience surrogate who helps the audience through this extremely different premise. Basically, she helps explain the dream world and all of the terminology that comes along with it in laden terms.
Ellen Page discovering dreams
This is probably my only gripe of the movie. Both the fact that the movie may be too smart for the general audience and that they try to explain too many things too fast in the beginning of the film. You should pay close attention to the first 20 minutes or so of the movie or you’ll be telling yourself that you have to watch the movie again to understand what just happened (this was overheard by a number of people leaving the screenings in various cities). In the middle of the movie, I thought it was too much but in fact it lays the foundation for the rest of the film. You just have to try and keep up. The other side of my argument is that Ellen Page’s character was too explanatory. She literally was there to explain every little piece of the movie and ask all the questions the audience was asking themselves. But when you put both sides of this argument together, you realize it had to be done to an extent to reach a wider audience especially to explain everything in the time frame of a single movie.
Ken Watanabe, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt discussing dreams
Christopher Nolan and his crew shot this movie beautifully. They go in an out of scenes as if you were dreaming. They used the dreams to get around a lot of the movie magic people complain about. You know in the end of a movie where it seems like the bomb which has 30 seconds left lasts 30 minutes? Well, in the dream world, time lasts longer so that problem is solved! I’m sure some movie magic was still used, but we’ll have to wait till those die hard fans time each scene and see if everything matches up with real time. The story itself, which Christopher Nolan wrote, is unique in the premise as well as the way it is told. They turn storytelling on it’s head and give a twisted approach to delivering the movie’s message. In no moment of the film was I bored or not thinking about what was going on in the screen. There wasn’t a second to turn away and after experiencing it all, you realize certain elements of typical film-making weren’t there but they were replaced with something much more…you’ll be talking about Inception for days if not weeks after.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt battling a projection in a dream
When you boil it down, this is an action film. There is plenty of action to satisfy any gun happy fan. You will jump out of your seat, you will squirm and turn with the actors, and you will constantly wonder what will happen next and how they will outdo themselves. You get everything with this movie…even some comedy. You’re reminded that physical humor still works as well as quick quips to get a quick audience laugh. Inception is the smartest student in a class of action films. This movie is expansive…they filmed in seven different countries and the scenery is epic. I want to go research every place they filmed because it backdrops looked breathtaking. Many times you will think…”How did they film that!?” but we’ll just have to wait for the behind the scenes footage from the DVD. This will surely go down in film history and be a must by for any movie collection.
Tags: Christopher Nolan, Cillian Murphy, Dileep Rao, Ellen Page, Inception, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ken Watanabe, Leonardo DiCaprio, Marion Cotillard, Michael Caine, Tom Hardy
Matthew Fong created advancescreenings.com and is the lead contributor. He watches every type of movie and will try almost anything twice. You can follow him on twitter here: @matthewfong
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