Fresh Reviews: "Inception"

From time to time, movies have tried to take us inside the world of dreams and make us experience this state (as closely as possible) while sitting awake in a darkened theatre. Sometimes they've come surprisingly close (if anyone remembers the original "Cabinet Of Dr. Caligari", or as recently as the dream sequences in "Shutter Island"), but most of the time, not surprisingly, they're off. With "Inception", Christopher Nolan has made dreams live on the movie screen in a way no other director has ever quite managed, and has firmly established himself (if there was still any doubt remaining) as one of the most unbelievably inventive directors on the scene today... and this is only his seventh film!

In the world of this film , it's possible for highly talented and skilled thieves to create unique dream environments, actually enter another person's dreams, and steal information that nobody else could possibly get access to any other way. Leonardo Decaprio plays the most skilled dream thief of all, who has been hired by a former target of his to take down his most dreaded rival. But to do this, Decaprio and his team will have to do more than just STEAL information, they've have to PLANT an idea in their target's head and make him think it's his own... something that, if it goes wrong, could result in a disaster of terrifying proportions.

Now comes the part where I have to talk about the film for a few more paragraphs without giving away too much information... wish me luck!

One thing that needs to be said is that this is definitely the most cerebral, intelligent big-studio summer movie I've seen in years, if ever. It's everything the typical summer blockbuster is not. While there certainly are a lot of dazzling visual effects, collapsing buildings, amazing fight scenes and so on, the story has such complexity and takes places on so many different levels of reality at once that it's entirely possible that your typical audience for brain-dead summer blockbusters will walk out shaking their heads and going "That sucked!" (though I'm pleased to say the opposite was true with my audience). But for anyone who may have been waiting for some actual food for thought at a commercial multiplex, something that's actually challenging, this is it! And no, in spite of what you might have heard, it isn't too complicated to follow... IF, of course, you stay awake and actually pay close attention. I'm hoping that isn't too much to ask of mass audiences.

I've seen so many movies in my (mumbledy-mumble) years that it seems at times that I've seen everything, and I go to each film hoping, usually in vain, for something I haven't seen before. "Inception" is filled with almost nothing else BUT. Scene after scene, I was so astonished that I almost had to keep checking to make sure my jaw hadn't dropped all the way to the floor of the theatre. But Nolan has not forgotten the thing that practically no blockbuster director seems to remember these days... that no matter how visually impressive a film is, it's a hollow piece of nothing if there's no emotion or real feeling involved. And Decaprio gives one of his best, most emotional and heartfelt performances as a man devestated by the loss of his beloved wife (Oscar winner Marion Cotillard), and who takes tremendous, life-threatening risks to build a dreamworld in which he can still commune with all that's left of her. (This isn't just a sub-plot, either, but has major bearing on the story). The brilliant supporting cast has plenty of emotional impact as well, including Ellen page ("Juno") as the dream "architect"), Joseph Gordon-Levitt ("500 Days of Summer") as a member of Decaprio's team, Ken Watanabe as their employer, Cillian Murphy ("Batman Begins") as their target, and especially Cotillard in a fantastic role as the shadow memory of Decaprio's late wife.

I also loved the fact that there aren'r just multiple plot threads, but that the threads are all taking place at the same time and feature the same characters. Sound confusing? Not really. The cast of characters is in one place and time in "reality", dreaming. Then they're somewhere else in a dream carrying out some complicated heist. But they're also in a third place in a different dream, and they have to finish a complicated task before the OTHER dream reaches a particular crisis point. Which of the three is "real", and is any of them actually any more real than the others just because two of them are dreams? These are the kinds of questions about the nature of what is and isn't real that Philip K. Dick gained his reputation by writing about, but you virtually never see a major studio like Warner Brothers funding a big-budget movie that asks them in such imaginative ways. Masjor, major points to Warner Brothers for giving Christopher Nolan an opportunity to take such risks, and of course to Nolan himself for being more than equal to Warners' faith in him.

Every single other movie I've ever reviewed on Hubpages (and before that, on Blogspot), I've waited until at least the next day to write the review, to gain a little bit of perspective (sometimes two or three days). But I finished watching "Inception" just barely two hours ago at the AMC Southdale Theatre, and am reviewing it now just a couple blocks away at the Southdale Library because I had to express my excitement about finally having the summer blockbuster of my dreams as soon as possible, before any of the emotional impact had faded and before I started thinking about it too calmly. This is a truly amazing movie on so many levels, and absolutely deserves to be seen by as large of a mass audience as the ones that see any of those mindless summer movies. Well... at least I THINK I finished watching the movie barely two hours ago. Maybe I fell asleep and I dreamed everything else and I'm still in the theatre. Maybe you're not actually reading this review, just dreaming it. Well, if you are, I hope you're dreaming up a world where the movie I just saw is playing. And if it is, I think you know what you should do.