Inception (2010)

The movie that I had waited years for, that I counted the hours for, that I saw on the midnight premier and then again 8 hours later, the film that I have now seen, to date, 9 times… I present to you, my friends, my no. 1 Movie Of All Time.

Without giving any incredibly important plot points away, the story is based in a time where dream theft and dream work is normal and centers on an extractor named Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) who is trying to get back to his children in the States while avoiding the authorities and arrest around the world. When Saito (Ken Watanabe), Cobb’s most recent subject of theft, hires him to perform an inception (a reverse of an extraction, if you will) on his business rival, Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy), promising Cobb a safe return home to his children if the idea he’s planting sticks, Cobb gathers together a team of experts — Ariadne, an architect (Ellen Page), Arthur, a pointman (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Eames, a forger (Tom Hardy) and Yusuf, a chemist (Dileep Rao) — to perform a task that, to date, has never been successful.

To put simply: this film blew my mind. Christopher Nolan had cemented himself in my “top directors to watch” list back with Memento, but this film shot him to the top of the list, taking out David Fincher from top spot just as Nolan’s Inception took out Fincher’s Fight Club to gain no. 1 on my top ten list.

The film is a project that Christopher Nolan had been working on for a very long time, and this is also his first ever fully original film; all his films to date have been adaptations of either books, graphic novels of short stories. He began working on this project when he was still in college, and held off making it for a long time because he felt that the effects that were possible and available to him would not make the film he saw in his mind’s eye. And to be honest, I am rather glad he waited.

Before I get to the effects, however, let me gush about the plot and characters. The plot summary I gave you is probably the most information that I can give without giving any spoilers away. The film was such a secret that the first trailer for it came out two months before the film was released. No one knew about it; no one even knew the casting until the first trailer was released. All we knew, was that the film involved dreams and dreaming, a spinning top, and that the music would probably make your heart beat so fast it exploded. Or, maybe, that was just me. The plot is incredible. I would go as far as agreeing with most critics here and say that it is one of the most original screenplays in the last ten years. Of course, as with everything, “originality is nonexistent” and many films can be linked to Nolan’s masterpiece, (such as The Matrix and The Cell to name just two), but none of them have the enormity, nor are they as epic as Inception. The plot makes perfect sense, and there is only one thing that I still cannot properly explain after having seen it 9 times. It is very rare that a sci-fi film of this caliber and imagination to have only one plot-point that cannot be explained.

The characters are all different, and are all relevant. Every character that exists in this story is there for a reason. They either have a job to do, or they are the subject of that job or they fund the job. They each have a certain skill set that may overlap with another character, but never overshadows it. Everyone is there to do their job because they are the best at it. Full stop. End of story. The only character that is ever fully developed, however, is Cobb. You find out the reason why he has been exiled from the United States, that he has a family and why he needs to get to them so desperately, who he used to be and how everything changed. He is also the lynchpin in the entire story: he knows every member of his team through previous work – in Arthur’s case, you see him working with Cobb before the Inception job comes up; in he case of Eames, enough is revealed in their banter for the audience to know that they have worked together before – or recommendations from others – Yusuf is an associate of Eames’ and Ariadne was recommended by Cobb’s father in law – and he is the prefect team leader to guide his dream team (pun intended) to achieving a task no one has ever succeeded in before.

Personally, I found that Cobb wasn’t a favourite character of mine. It’s not because something is WRONG with him, just that I liked other characters (for example Arthur and Eames) a lot more. In talking with others who have seen the film – many of them due to my pestering they do so – I have found that I’m not alone. So, I would have to say that the only criticism that I can come up with for this film is that more characters weren’t developed as Cobb was. God forbid someone other than Nolan attempts a sequel (the film truly didn’t need one) but perhaps the graphic novels that are currently in publication will shed some light on the more mysterious and intriguing characters of the film.

Now, the effects. There would be no review of Inception that didn’t mention its use of effects. Because this is a film that is set mostly within someone’s mind and dream, the world had to be dream-like. And trust me when I say that there are certain scenes and sequences that truly are magnificent and dream-like, but Nolan doesn’t make the mistake of making his film unrealistic. “Dreams feel real while we’re in them, it’s only when we wake up that we realize something was actually strange.” As Cobb says in the film, the dreams are not ridiculous. Yes, there are aspects of them that would never exist in reality (such as the anti-gravity corridor) but until an unrealistic aspect comes up, the dreamscape feels as real as the real world. Chris uses this to his advantage, and points it out as a dangerous part of being an extraction/inception team.

Chris did most of his effects physically or through the camera. Obviously the green screen work and wires did require post production help (as did Paris folding in on itself) but every effect that could be achieved without a computer, was achieved that way. Which is incredible, considering some of the things you see on screen (just to name a few without spoilers: the skiing sequence was filmed with a hand-held camera by one of the most talented cameramen in the world, the building that blew up in the dreamscape was blown up in real life and shot from many angles at once, the anti-gravity corridor – albeit absolutely incredible – was actually done with wires and camera work, and the actor was in an environment with gravity the entire time…)

The music was written by the amazing Hans Zimmer and adds the final touch to Nolan’s pure gem of a film. It is almost a continuous soundtrack (I had to listen very carefully to find parts of the film that were silent) and yet nothing is every repetitive and dull. The music controls the mood almost as strongly as the actors and script do. It truly is a soundtrack not to be missed.

This film gets a 9.5/10 from me. I take away the 0.5 for two reasons: one is the single plot-point I can’t explain away, and the second is the lack of back story for the other characters. Both of these do nothing to sully the film, however, and are more personal than anything else. The film is beautiful, powerful, epic and unforgettable, and I recommend it to anyone and everyone.

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