Too clever by half?
Inception is a film that has divided the opinions of the cinema going public, so in a Beehive first, we have invited two of our writers to battle it out on the page, putting forward their arguments for and against the motion picture.
Please also read Bart Harris’s piece in favour of the movie before voting in the poll at the end of the article.
I really did want to like this film, I really did. Christopter Nolan has done wonderful things to big budget movies whereby opulence and special effects have the rare outcome of galvanising the film – examples of which you need not look further than the recent Batman franchise.
However, you can wax lyrical about the subtexts and new ideas within 2008’s The Dark Knight, but in reality you can summarise Batman’s character in the film on one of those ever so clever four word film reviews: “Moral? Immoral? Grey Area.” And there, ladies and gentlemen, lies the elixir of the modern action movie – it’s not all muscles and guns; it’s muscles, guns and a bit of a moral dilemma.
Right! Excellent! Publish!
I’m a big fan of this approach as I can sit there all smug, munching my popcorn, sipping my 6 litre tank of diet cola, all in 3D Dolby Pro Plus believing that I am ever so slightly more cerebral than all of those Rambo-loving types that queued in their hordes, scraping their knuckles, drinking full fat coke, squinting at the local Odeon over twenty years ago.
There is a very important lesson in this – I want my big budget action movies to still be simple – if I wanted rampant cod philosophy within them I would have gone to watch something about the Cold War, spoken in Japanese, filmed in sepia and with the subtitles in French. This is where Inception initially falls down – it’s just too complex.
If you were to benchmark the complexity – The Terminator’s original treatment script spanned 44 pages and is a brilliant 108 minutes; whilst Nolan’s Inception treatment ran to over 80 pages for a film that’s just too long at 148 minutes.
The Terminator’s brilliance can be summed up in a four word review: “Big Bloke, Future, Shit!” I simply can’t get a review for Inception into four words (although I can magically cram it into four letters).
Indeed there’s a popular phrase “Elevator pitch” determining that you have the duration of an elevator ride to explain a concept. With Inception? Fat chance – even if the elevator journey is actually a third dream level and you actually have a million years to tell people – because by this point – your audience would have happily slipped into their fourth or even fifth level of dream. Consequently it is pretty much a given that any film too complex to really get your head around in a short space of time is necessarily restricted to scratching the surface rather than really exploring and developing the plot.
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It is because the film is too complicated that it causes necessary economies with the plot. A significant amount relies on happy coincidence and it therefore has an utter disregard for reality itself (a point which the may seem ironic given the film’s preoccupation with dreaming). This is something that the similarly ambitious but exceptional “The Matrix” excels in – it’s ability to suspend the laws of physics in a believable way. It’s not that the scenes in Inception aren’t masterfully rendered – and they are, it is the more basic details which stop you from allowing yourself to be drawn into the film as a possibility, however far-fetched.
Leonardo DiCaprio’s character fails in being human, and not due his acting master-class, but down to the flaws in the script. The whole film revolves around the premise that poor old Leo just needs to go back to America to see his children, but cannot as he is implicated in the death of his mentalist wife (Marion Cotilard). If I simply cannot believe that a man would be willing to risk everything so he can go and see his children in America when he could just drop them on a Boeing with the lovably estranged Michael Caine and make do without all this sleeping nonsense, then I certainly can’t believe that you can dial into people’s dreams with a rather fragile looking wristband telephone.
As for the basis of the entire film – please! If I was the head of a large multinational energy company worried about the monopoly a rival company had, I’d probably start by petitioning the Monopolies Commission, and not by hiring a crackpot who’s implicated in killing his wife, after sending her mental – and I certainly wouldn’t demand that I got strapped into his Nokia Rabbit HoleTM.
Indeed it is this simple lack of basic common sense, and with it, human feeling, which leaves the viewer with little choice but not to believe the unbelievable; which is a shame because I for one really wanted to.
Four word review? “All surface, no feeling”
Make sure you’ve read the opposing argument on this film before voting in our poll
Looks like Dransfield has found some support, which is OK, BUT (to Amanda) why wait for the DVD to get a scond viewing?, do what I did – go and see it a second time!
Just as with The Matrix, Memento and other time-juggled classics (Pulp Fiction and Kill Bill) it just gets better as you understand more and different layers are revealed. Sure 2hr20 is a long time and attention can lapse – so if you didn’t follow it you will probably not understand it.
Suspend your disbelief ..erm.. like you do for any movie.. a shared dream world is no less plausible (or entertaining) than a world created on shared computer network where sleeping humans are plugged in from birth to make them believe they are meaningful while they act as Duracells! Or an Aston Martin DBS that can do mid-air acrobatics (how the hell did Bond get in here??)and still land on all four shiny alloy wheels with a Starbucks Grande Skinny Laté still in the cup holder!
So Inception up there with the best, absolute top class thinking persons’ entertainment and excellently done.. and I still can’t wait for the DVD to come out – so take this as my pre-order!
Yep just put them on a plane and save yourself the trouble man. Inception was pretentious psychobabble and y’all fell for it.
I agree 100% with the reviewer.
I wanted to love this movie, but if anything I felt pretty angry with all the people who built it up to be the Blockbuster it really wasn’t. The only blocks this film is bustin’ were the brain cells in Nolan’s head. Nolan spent so much time trying to be clever that he ended up making the audience feel dumb, and mind numb.
Sure it was a good movie but not the kind you’d really wanna watch over again and again. Guys, are you really gonna buy the dvd when it comes out and watch again – because it’ll just tire you out and bore you. I guess this is what happens when you get 90% of the critics on board to Chinese Whisper how brilliant a movie is, turning it into the Blockbuster of the Year but I challenge every viewer to watch the ‘The Matrix’ back to back with ‘Inception’… and don’t be surpsied when you realise it is nothing on the Wachowski brothers. Nothing what they created was believable, plausible and wonderful.
‘The Matrix’, ‘Aliens’, ‘Terminator 1′, ‘Terminator 2′… what do these films have in common. They are all BRIILIANT plus, and this is a BIG plus… they all have likeable characters. Who was likeable in ‘Inception’ guys? Cobb? Didn’t you find him just a little too whiney? And what about Juno – so miscast and Sullen. Don’t even get me started on ’500 Days of Summer’ so much potential but blatantly trying to be badass. And back to DiCaprio, well… he reminded me of somebody:
why hasn’t anyone picked up on the fact that:-
a. Cobb was pretty much a carbon copy of DiCaprio’s character in ‘Revolutionary Road’.
b. The soundtrack was pretty much a carbon copy of ‘Shutter Island’
and
c. The whole phone system – well wasn’t that kinda done before in ‘The Matrix’ – but BETTER?
At first I was impressed, indeed the first 20 minutes were interesting enough, engaging even and explosive! But everything went downhill after the bullet train. This film went on and on and on like a bad dream… oh wait a minute, it was supposed to be a bad dream… wasn’t it?
What can I say… This reviewer has been unable to suspend his disbelief and be swept awat in the psyche of the film-maker – is this his fault or Christopher Nolan’s – Probably neither but I feel sorry for him that he wasnt able to enter in to the world that Nolan created. I felt it to be a richly constructed internally consistent existance in which an exciting espionage thriller was constructed with the feel of a 70′s crime thriller overlaid by an intelligent multi level labyrinth semi reality. It is unashamably a blockbuster that wants to attract the popcorn and coke crowd but inject a little more intellect than Transformers 13. I am tempted to tell him to get back to his spreadsheets and move on – but I cant help but agree with his “kids on a plane” objection… still a blockbuster masterpiece!
Ok, its official. This blogger/writer is absolutely mad! People like you should obviously stick to reviewing Disney films, because it is apparent that he does not have the mental/intellectual capacity to appreciate the gem that is INCEPTION.
Did this person really watch the movie? I am lost for words!
INCEPTION…Awesome, mindblowing, are inadequate words to describe it.
I must agree with the others who question whether or not the blogger enjoys fine cinema.
Complex? Yes, absolutely. Overly? Of course not. At least, not for those of us who enjoy employing our intellect when viewing fine film .
I just checked my totem, yep…I am still in my own dream…so i must have created this bad review from my own thoughts. So it must be true… or not.
You have seriously missed the whole point of the film. After ages i have felt that it was money well spent once i had seen this film. it makes you think to a level that you thought wasnt possible with a film and it also has plenty of action with twists. the casting was brilliant and you are glued to your chair the whole time. if i wanted a simple story line i would have watched Toy Story 3 or Shrek!
Are you certain you saw this movie? Are you from this planet or any other potential life force? You’re obviously not a person capable of a serious thought, even for cinema, judging by your movie preferences in your review. So I suggest that you should stick to reviewing the usual rubbish that Hollywood churns out like raw sewage. I would suggest you should try and expand your mind be reading a lot more and possibly doing about six grams of mushrooms and several hits of acids and, maybe some peoyote, but I doubt you’ll do any of that, so just stick to reviewing what you know best, which is virtually nothing.
You are delirious. This is the BEST movie EVER.