Review: Inception

Saw that little flick Inception a few weeks back when I was in Los Angeles during my sabbatical.

The film is directed by Christopher Nolan whom many people forget is a Redcoat. Just sayin. It stars one of the many people who died in The Departed, an annoying pregnant teenager, that lady who won the oscar for best Actress and everyone was like "who the fuck is that?" but then she's been in some movies since so people are like "oh yeah, it's that girl, I don't know what her name is, but I think it's that girl", the kid from the third best kids baseball movie of the early 90's (1.The Sandlot, 2.Rookie of the Year), and let us not forget Bronson.

The story follows a dude who goes into other dudes dreams to steal ideas. But then some rich dude wants him and his co-workers to go into some dudes brain to implant an idea. But in order to do that they have to go into dreams inside of dreams, then inside other ones and his ex-wife haunts him through these..... and bullets and explosions of course!!!!!


I saw the 11pm screening on Friday after five consecutive 13 hour shoot days. To say the least I was psychically, mentally and emotionally drained. Barely keeping awake in the waiting line outside the theatre I did not know if I could make it through the entire film. I did. I think.

Initial thoughts after seeing it; I definitely had a good friggin time. Seeing it in IMAX was the way to go. It looked stunning. And the sound, whoah! Punch you in the face. There was applause after a particular scene and at the end of the film, I joined in as I was pretty darn entertained. Perplexed to exactly what the fuck I just saw, but still... entertained.

The scene in particular that received the rousing applause was the hallway fight scene between Joseph Gordon-Levitt and some bad dream security dude. It----was----bad-------asssss. The whole time watching it I was like "wuuuu theeee fuuuuuk!?" and I could feel the same energy from everyone else around me in the theatre without looking around to see their faces. Fantastic movie moment that put a nice big smile on my face afterwards.



Another high point of the film is the gorgeous cinematography by Wally Pfister. There is a great variety, vibrancy, color, and texture used throughout with the lighting that makes every scene a pleasure to watch no matter what's happening. The slow motion shots are wicked and supremely done.

I heard some people saying this is the greatest film ever made and that people won't even make films anymore because this was so good. That is stupid. Take The Dark Night out of your DVD player and update your Netflix Que.

The world created for this film is pretty darn interesting. Being able to go into other peoples dreams is a pretty cool concept. And the way it is presented in this film in a Bond/Bank Robber kinda way is also pretty cool. You get certain movie conventions with a nice fresh added twist that gives you a new dynamic that is fully satisfying to watch.

The problem is a lot of people critical of the film are taking it too seriously and trying to make sense of the world created for the film. The film takes itself very seriously, so why not us? Well... the fact is dreams don't make much sense. It's not an exact science as no one really understands what they are, how they happen, why they happen, and how they work to this day. Thus the physics and realities of how the characters perform what they do in the film don't make much sense, thus trying to make sense of non-sense is utter non-sense really. A lot of gripes can be made about the characters being thin and only there as plot devices and the story being too complicated but the overriding feeling should be "alright, just go with it!". Then you'll be fine. Watch it. Have fun. Repeat if necessary.

A little gripe I have with a lot of movies which this film suffered to as well was the trailers showing all the key scenes in the film. C'mon just stop that. It's annoying and lame.


I recommend this for anyone who enjoys Nolan's previous work, action movies, and films about dreams. Sure it ain't perfect, but nothing is. It still has quite a lot of cool shit going for it cinematically where it's well worth checking out on the big screen, IMAX it if you can.