“Inception” review
by V.E. on August 3rd, 2010
filed under entertainment, recap/review
I went to see Inception (wiki) with my little sister last Thursday morning before work. It was… pretty good, actually. I wouldn’t say it’s the kind of movie that would blow my mind (ie: The Matrix) or that I’d obsessively watch again and again (ie: The Dark Knight), but I may just be hard to please, at least in terms of film expectations. I really like Joseph Gordon-Levitt, I like Leonardo DiCaprio, and I can take or leave Ellen Page. (Not that she’s a bad actor or anything, but Juno was a huge turn-off for me, and I can’t look at her without thinking of that, which is not what I want.) I also like Cillian Murphy, but I can’t say I’ve ever seen him in any other movies except Batman Begins before this one.
Okay, so the basic premise is that the characters live in a world where secrets can be stolen directly from the mind (from a dream, actually) of the person who holds them. It might even be this world, but regular, average-joe-type people don’t have important enough secrets to warrant anyone else wanting to steal them or, for that matter, having enough money to have someone teach us how to protect against that kind of mind/dream invasion. DiCaprio plays a man named Dominic Cobb who is the best information stealer on the planet. A man (played by Ken Watanabe) hires him to do what most of the other characters deem impossible: instead of stealing an idea, this man wants Cobb to plant an idea in someone else’s mind. Cobb insists that it’s possible, but it requires serious amounts of dreamwalking (three or four levels deep, even, meaning that he must go into a dream within a dream within a dream, and so on). Because of his extenuating circumstances, Cobb accepts the risky job against his instincts and the advice of the other characters and assembles a team. Arthur (Gordon-Levitt) and Ariadne (Page) are among those he assembles, and Fischer (Murphy) is their target, the heir to an empire that could become a monopoly if it isn’t broken up after his father dies.
I don’t want to ruin the story for anyone who still wants to see it, especially since it’s still out in theaters, and anyway it was difficult enough for me to explain the above paragraph to set up the story in the first place. Once the characters go down into the dreamspaces (within dreamspaces within dreamspaces), it gets even more confusing. Seriously. You just kinda have to watch it to really understand it, and even then it’s kind of a crapshoot. I’m not saying it’s a bad movie—it isn’t—but if you’re not paying close attention for the entire 148 minutes (which was a long time for even someone like me to be sitting still), you could miss something that could throw off the rest of the movie, and that’s not a good thing. So, if you have ADD, ADHD, or an otherwise short attention span, I wouldn’t bother seeing this movie unless you’re willing to see it numerous times (in the theater) or have on DVD so that you can pause and go back as needed (after it comes out on DVD).
Generally, I’m a fan of having characters who have names that lend something to their character (as opposed to having a character with a random name like Joe or Anne just because you have to name the character something). In this movie, though, both women had character-enhancing names—Ariadne and Mal—and they just seemed cheesy to me.
In case you don’t know: in ancient Greek legends, Ariadne was a daughter of King Minos of Crete. She helped Theseus kill the famed Minotaur by giving him a sword a ball of red string so that he could find his way out of the Minotaur’s labyrinth. In the movie, Ariadne’s role is to create the dream worlds in which the other characters inhabit and make sure that those worlds are mazes so that the target doesn’t figure it out too soon and trap the other characters there.
Much more simply, mal in Latin means “bad” or “evil” (as in malevolent or Maleficent). The character Mal acts as a serious foil for Dominic: a person who haunts him even in his deepest dream-state (maybe even especially there) and causes havoc for the other characters because Dominic can’t keep a handle on his emotions or subconscious around her.
(Though, admittedly, these two characters, cheesy names or not, managed to help Inception dubiously pass the Bechdel Test. There’s a scene in which Ariadne goes into one of Dominic’s dreams and she and Mal have a conversation that does not involve talking about a man, at least not directly. However, it’s revealed as the story goes on that the real Mal is dead and the one in Dominic’s dreams is basically just a shade of her former self—all that he can remember of her. So, does that mean Ariadne was talking to a female character, or a female subconscious part of a male character? It’s debatable.)
At least the effects are seriously A+, right?
I also agree with the reviewer who said that every question poised by the characters seemed to have a ready-made answer.
Each question asked by Cobb’s dream team…is answered a la the official “Inception” owner’s manual: quickly, predictably, and as if it were all being made up on the fly. There is indeed an answer for everything: The sedative that doesn’t allow a dreamer to return from the dream? I’ve adjusted it, says the team pharmacologist. What happens if someone is killed in dream but is sedated at the same time? Uh, he goes to Limbo, or “unconstructed dream space.”
It was as though there wasn’t enough time to fit all the questions in there and still have a story; like maybe it would’ve worked better as a miniseries or one-season TV show. The time given—even though it was 148 minutes—wasn’t enough to explore all the crazy things people inside dreams are capable of, and so on.
The ending (the very end, I mean) wasn’t really surprising, but it was appropriate. I’m not going to ruin it by explaining what happens, though I will say that I really liked Fischer’s part near the end in the vault with his dying father. That was really touching. If I think about it too much longer, I’ll just confuse myself, so I’m going to stop now and call this review done and done. Overall, I’d give it a watch, if only for the (admittedly amazing) special effects and the puzzle it presents to viewers.
