So I’ll go ahead and say it, best movie of the year. Unless Harry Potter Part 1 can trump it – which I doubt, Inception is definitely the movie to see this year. I have to admit, I went in with pretty high expectations. I mean this is all from the same director as Memento, the Prestige, Batman Begins and the Dark Knight … who wouldn’t go in with high expectations right? Either way, Nolan didn’t let me down and aside from a few minor things I think that it’s my favorite film by him thus far.

Sum it Up:

Leo DiCaprio plays a different type of “spy” in this movie where the espionage really takes place within someone’s dreams. He and his team go into the target’s dream and extract a thought or idea from that dream. All this changes when a client asks if Inception can be done. Inception is actually the opposite process, instead of extracting an idea or thought, you are implanting one into someone’s dream so that it then becomes their idea or thought. We are also told that it’s practically impossible to do this, but Leo thinks that he can assemble the right team for the job and make it so. Leo also has more driving him than just money to make sure that they complete this particular job.

the Good:

Where do I begin? I honestly could go on a positive rant about so many points in this movie where everything just blew me away. I’ll start with an easy one though, and for me that was the visuals. Brandon and I both walked out of the theater just raving about how there was so much CG and Visual Effects produced from this movie that hardly any point in the film you thought to yourself, “oh that looks bad” etc. See, where this film differs from say something like Avatar is that a lot of it is set in real world situations where we know what to expect and know what things should look like. Where as with a movie like Avatar, we are shown things we’ve never seen so we can’t just say, “oh that looks so fake…” etc. etc. Basically through out the entire movie up until about the last 15 minutes I never even considered anything to be fake. That’s how well the time and effort and even money paid off for the end result. If you haven’t seen this movie yet, please try and take in all the visuals that you can in the film because they certainly deliver.

Other things up for “good” consideration are the story/plot. I know that Chris Nolan had a lot to do with the writing of this movie and I commend him for it. Not since the Matrix have I seen something so original and breathtaking that I truly bought into the entire idea of the movie. What I mean by original is to take spy movies for example. We’ve all seen a James Bond movie, or a Jason Bourne movie or even a movie like Get Smart that deals with spies. They all share the same common qualities, one main guy, one main bad guy, a plot that involves the bad guy trying to take over the world using some sinister idea or some big machine to do it, throw in a bunch of henchman, some woman love interest and what do you get – your typical spy movie. That’s not to say that it’s not a working system and that a lot of those movies are bad … in fact a lot of the movies that I just mentioned are good films. Though, what sets Inception apart from these films is the original story of using dreams and espionage together. So well in fact that you get to see what Christopher Nolan has thought up, and not without justification, rules or limitations. It seemed as if Nolan had taken every chance to refine the idea and to make sure he ironed out all the intricate details involved in making this film into something we could all buy into. Not that you need much help to buy into it.

Which leads me into a quick note, all the back story as to how this “dream stealing” all came to be. If I had any worry going into this movie it might have been that we would be expected to swallow a very large pill of “ok i’ll buy into this” to be able to enjoy watching the movie. What is amazing is that you don’t need to with how Nolan explains things. I won’t ruin the movie for you because I feel this movie is definitely one everyone should see, but just believe me when I say that he explains it briefly but it all makes pretty good logical sense.

The pacing seemed to really bring me into the movie. Nolan seems to do this really well for all his movies. He has a knack for making sure he tells a story but also keeps the audience interested by throwing in action scenes and dialog scenes all at the appropriate time. I never once was bored or waiting for something to happen, I was more on the edge of my seat for this film than I was for say Iron Man 2. I couldn’t wait to see what would happen next.

The acting for me was on par. Did I think it was great? No. Did I think any of the actors were bad or stood out in a bad way? No. I thought that the casting was ok. I do think that Leo is as others have said, is “running on auto pilot” or “just going through the motions” because he tends to land the same type of role over and over again where he never tends to “act” any differently than he did from the previous film. It would’ve been nice to see Brad Pitt or maybe Viggo Mortensen up for the main role but I digress. I’m not a casting director.

A little side note, I do enjoy how Nolan re-uses actors in his films. I won’t spoil the fun for you but try and think out of all his movies how many actors have been used in one or more of his films.

Oh, and I’ll leave the “good” section with this final thought. The way Nolan ends the film is pretty awesome. This won’t spoil anything for anyone (in case you were getting your panties in a twist about what I am about to say) … He pretty much ends it the way he chooses to and how I’m sure he understands how it all ends, but for the viewer – everything is up for interpretation. Which is awesome! At first I wasn’t so keen on the idea, but the more I talked about it and thought about it, the more I ended up enjoying the way it ended. It sparks conversation outside of the movie and makes you consider other possibilities. Which for a movie to impose anything on you past what you experience in the theater itself seems like a pretty decent accomplishment if you ask me.

the Bad:

Like I had said, the casting for me wasn’t the best, but it also didn’t detract much from the overall film. I think it could’ve been better but what do I know.

You’ll notice in the film how they are “put to sleep” and how they immediately go into their dream states. If I could really say anything actually negative about this movie it would be that. They seem to just slap these little bracelets on all the people that are getting ready to go into their dream, and then voila in a matter of seconds they are asleep and dreaming … and are all in the same dream. This is also the only part of the movie that wasn’t really explained. I’m not quite sure why they didn’t explain it, maybe because the process did seem a little “out there” and they thought it better to hope that the audience would in fact just buy into that since they explained everything else. I don’t know but it was awfully odd that they could all be in a very hectic stressful situation and all they had to do was slap on these little bracelet things that sent this sedative into their bodies and immediately they would be dreaming and in the same dream. Ha, I just realized that if you haven’t seen the film I probably just confused the hell out of you and if that’s the case, well shame on you – GO SEE THIS MOVIE!

Final Thought:

I can see how a lot of people would complain about the length of this film, it’s 2 hrs. and 22 mins., BIG DEAL! If we pay $10 for a movie, then I damn well want my to get what I pay for. I honestly can’t stand how people complain about long movies. Well I’m sorry – if you can’t stand being entertained by some amazing story telling then by all means, go next door and watch the Last Airbender or some chic flic for just under 2 hours and tell me how that goes. Oh and by the way, the length of every movie you want to see is posted on a website …how about you look it up before you complain about it being a long movie.

Wow sorry … bad Lucas – get back to the Final Thought …

Yeah, great movie. See it.

Inception Review : (9/10)