Recap, Review, and Rant: Inception

In this day and age, unless you've been living under a rock that happens to be in a safe room which is located in an underground cavern, you've heard of director Christopher Nolan, aka the director of the new Batman franchise. And unless you're a so-called "rebel," "social outcast," "indie fucker" what the hell ever, you've seen these movies and rather enjoyed them because, well, they're fucking awesome. But they're action flicks and superhero movies, so they rarely get any "artistic" vision attached to them and will never necessarily win a "Best Picture" award.

Luckily, Inception is not an action nor a superhero flick.

Tonight, I went to see the midnight showing of this movie and it's safe to say that I was hesitantly excited. I've enjoyed what Nolan has done with the Batman movies so far; they've been truly wonderful films. However, as much as I wanted to love this movie before I'd even seen it, I didn't want to get my hopes up too far because I knew if I did, the movie would suck. But I still couldn't really help myself. I was excited and wary and confused all at the same time.

Hours before seeing the movie, I sat my boyfriend down and we went through the cast list, attaching character names to the faces of the actors who would be playing them and reading the brief summary located at imdb.com so we wouldn't get lost. I find that doing a bit of research prior to seeing the movie, namely just looking up what the basic plot is and what the name of the main character(s) are helps a great deal. I've not done this for some movies and wound up feeling entirely lost.

That being said, I don't know if it was exactly necessary for this movie. It has a bit of an Ocean's Eleven vibe to it in that they name the character before/during the character's first appearance, rather than making you Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot throughout the movie and not knowing who they're talking about an hour in during what is supposed to be an Important Scene. A good rule of thumb, future directors/writers out there? DON'T MAKE YOUR AUDIENCE HAVE TO JUMP THROUGH HOOPS TO REMEMBER WHO IS WHO. Say the character's name early and relatively often so we don't end up forgetting, else I'll probably just get pissed at you about halfway through and want to chuck you off a tall building while simultaneously stabbing you repeatedly in the eye, ear and appendix.

Seriously, don't do it.

From the previews and movie stills, I knew this movie was going to be pretty to look at. And going in, I knew that it had to be, because of what it was.

For those that don't know, this movie is about a man who is hired to plant an idea into the subconscious of another man via entering his dreamscape and convincing him that it was his idea in the first place. His motivations to do this are because he wants to get home, though why he can't do so without planting the idea (also called "inception" - oh, now the title makes sense, eh?) is another story entirely. I'm not telling you because that would just ruin the experience.

So going in, I knew this movie had to get a few things right in order for it to meet my expectations:

1. It had to be pretty. Since the majority of the movie takes place in a dreamworld, the film's graphical conception of this dreamworld had to be gorgeous and, well, perfect. Dreams are not like reality: Reality has minute detail, unpredictability, it's gritty and dirty and all that good stuff. The dreamworld of this movie had to be perfect, detailed enough for us to believe it as a real place, but also allow for the dreamer, and thereby the audience, to fill in the details. After all, that's what we do while in our dreams.
   
   
2. The acting had to be way above par. This is true for any movie, but seeing as how this is a movie by Christopher Nolan, the audience is going to have higher expectations, especially after seeing Heath Ledger's perfection as The Joker in The Dark Knight. Great acting is created via the actor and the director and their relationship and ability to co-actively create an experience for the audience to believe that the person on their screen is a real individual. With a cast like this:
   
   • Leonardo DiCaprio* - Dom Cobb, the male lead
     
   • Cillian Murphy - Robert Fischer, Jr., the antagonist (though this is debatable)
     
   • Michael Caine - Miles, grandfather to Cobb's children
     
   • Ellen Page - Ariadne, the female lead
     
   • Joseph Gordon-Levitt - Arthur, the "sidekick"
     
   • Ken Wantanbe - Saito, the instigator (and also arguably an antagonist, but his role serves a larger purpose than that)
     
   you know that the movie is going to be pretty damned good, if directed properly.
   
   *Note: Don't give me any crap about DiCaprio because he's come a long way since Titanic. He was excellent in Catch Me If You Can, The Departed, Gangs of New York and while he still has a way to go, he's been making excellent strides with every role he takes. I will seriously fight you tooth-and-nail for this if you really want to push it.
   **Note: I was really excited to see Page take a role outside of what I think she's begun to become comfortable in, namely "an independent outsider rebel who marches to the beat of her own drum and in the end everyone loves her for it." This role was nothing like that and I think that by choosing to take this role, it showed a bit more depth to her acting ability. It was a good choice and one that I really enjoyed seeing her do.
   
   
3. The script itself had to consist of enough twists and turns to make it exciting and thrilling. After all, this is supposed to represent a dreamworld the majority of the time which doesn't exactly have a direct line between point A and point B. It has to be a maze for the audience, as well as the characters.
   
   
4. Good. Action. Sequences.
   Nolan has become known for his action flicks and that's not necessarily a bad thing, as he does them well. A good action sequence is hard to direct because you not only have to keep your actors safe and out of harm, you also have to make sure that it appears dangerous enough for the audience to really fear for the characters, as well as be something new.

What's excellent about this movie is that it manages to hit all of these points, and more that I can't think of right now. It was excellently shot, well-paced (which was extremely difficult considering the various levels of time that the movie approached), the acting was truly something to behold and enjoy, had honestly excellent and enjoyable action sequences and the script was extremely well-written, incorporating enough scientific data and research that we are able to believe that this set-up could actually happen, as well as down-to-earth explanation of certain events that need to happen for things to work, such as the "kick" that allows the characters to be released from one of the deeper levels of dreamstate. Anyone who's ever fallen in a dream only to wake up with a jerk and a start knows exactly what the characters are talking about in the movie.

One of the key things that I enjoyed about this movie is the overall theme/message that it presents, but we only become aware of it in the final few moments of the film. Having said that...

Disclaimer: For those of you who have not yet seen the movie, below this point may be spoilers. DON'T BITCH AT ME IF YOU READ BELOW BECAUSE I WENT OUT OF MY WAY TO WARN YOU, DAMMIT. Scroll down until the break to avoid spoilers and keep reading.

Toward the middle of the film, we are shown the idea of a "token," or a small, physical item that holds enough weight, both physically and emotionally, to the bearer for them to be able to differentiate between what is real and what is dream. For Cobb, it is a small metal top that originally belonged to his wife, as her token. He tells Ariadne that whenever she spun it in the dream, it would never topple over, so she would know reality by the fact that it would spin and then fall as gravity would eventually take hold.

Now, in the final scene, we are show Cobb returning home to his family. In these final moments, he has a bit of a freak-out, trying to make sure that this is all real and not still a dream. He knows that it can be quite difficult to determine dream from reality and as such removes the top from his pocket and places it on the kitchen table, giving it a flick and watching it spin. A moment later, his children come running to see him and he turns his back on the top, delighted to see the two small kids that he has been missing since his wife died. We are shown a few moments of him with his children before they fade to the background and the camera pans down to the top, still spinning on the table.

It was at this point that I felt, and heard, the entire audience in the theatre take a collective breath and hold it, watching this simple metal top spinning on the kitchen table. It does so for awhile, spinning quite fast and after a few seconds begins to slow down before...

...Cut to black. We never see the top fall over and it is at this point that the entire audience nearly had an aneurysm because of what those final seconds mean: We have no idea if Dom Cobb is back into a reality or if he is still in a dreamworld.

It was also at this point that I realize one of the underlying themes, and thereby the message, of the movie. How can one determine reality from fiction? Is it even possible to do so? Thinking about it now, I have to laugh because Nolan approached this same idea in another film, The Prestige. And then I have to laugh again because we're watching a movie. Sometimes, a movie is so real to us, either emotionally or graphically that we can't help but stare in awe and wonder about our own existence. Are we real? Am I real? How do I know? Can I know? It's a mind-blowing concept and one that Nolan has managed to taunt us with yet again. I have distinct memories of being frazzled and provoked into thinking of these concepts after having seen The Prestige. And while I have yet to see Momento, also directed by Nolan, I'm fairly certain that the same idea(s) are there, too.

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YAY YOU'RE BACK.

The thing I like about this movie is that it really made me think about what constitutes my reality and how do I determine it from fiction. It also managed to do something that I'm really pleased and somewhat proud of Nolan for doing, and that is showing our modern audiences that you don't need 3-D technology to make a beautiful movie these days. Even if you just look at some of the stills from this film, you'll know what I'm talking about, but I'd highly encourage you to go and see it for yourself. Even if you're not a DiCaprio fan, even if you think it's supposed to be an action film, which it's not, even if you believe that anything Nolan does is annoying or cliche or whatever. If anything, go and see it for the beauty it shows you because that alone is pretty spectacular.

Oh, and the fight scene in the revolving hallway is also 100% totally worth seeing it on the big screen.