[Archive Review] Inception (2010) {Spoilers}

In Theaters Now Warner Bros Pictures   Directed by Christopher Nolan Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Ken Watanabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy   Rating: 5/5

I’ll open this review by making two statements.

1. Inception deserves to be the blockbuster that it is. It is a wonderful movie and an exercise in near flawless direction.
2. Inception is a very simplistic movie that does not deserve the hyperbolic fuss about it being a mind bending experience, at least not in the way people are buzzing about.

The second statement is not meant as a complaint. Director Christopher Nolan has made an ambitious movie that takes extremely complex abstract ideas and simplifies them for mass consumption while at the same time giving birth to a hell of a sci-fi action thriller. Nolan has coaxed the abstract to become literal and it is a pleasure to watch.

I doubt if many people are drawing comparisons between Nolan and David Lynch, but I think I have an apt comparison that might work to explain just what Inception does:

If David Lynch movies open Pandora’s Box of the subconscious, then Inception is a maze of the subconscious that the viewer navigates easily due to the tasty treat at the end.

Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Cobb, a man with the very unique talent of being able to infiltrate someone’s subconscious through their dreams* and steal important information. Cobb is a man for hire who will seek a target to extract information that will in some way help his employer – whoever it might be at the time.

*One great and ballsy move by Nolan is that the technology is never  explained – and therefore is held harmless from nitpickers. There is a suitcase containing some drugs that the mark and the team of extractors take to put them in a deep unconscious state, but nothing is revealed about the technical aspect of the process.

The movie begins at near the end which is something that you pick up on right away. The body of the movie is told as a flashback setting up the final sequence of scenes.

After a clever introduction to Nolan’s subconscious dream world and some of the aspects that will be explored as the movie progresses, Cobb is hired by Saito (Ken Watanabe), a wealthy energy baron, to do what has long thought to be impossible – plant an idea in someone’s mind instead of extracting information from it. It’s a dangerous proposition, but a risk that Cobb is willing to take because Saito offers him something that no one else has been able to: The ability to go home. Cobb is thought guilty of a crime in the United States and Saito can make that problem disappear with his connections.

Cobb must put a team of infiltrators together for this immense task. His long time partner Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is along for the ride from the outset, but there are other positions to fill: The chemist Yusuf (Dileep Rao), needed for a custom brewed chemical compound to put the mark and team in the proper accessible state; Eames (Tom Hardy) a kind of handyman who can strategize, assume alternate subconscious identities, and be muscle when needed; and finally Ariadne (Ellen Page), an architect  in the most literal sense. The architect is a vital role for they create the levels of the dream landscape. The levels must be based on reality but not an exact reflection of any real place. Furthermore, the architect builds levels like a labyrinth that the mark automatically fills in with his subconscious. The end result is a dream world that appears familiar to the mark, but is actually a complex construct that allows the infiltrators to interact with the mark and manipulate his subconscious mind by “physically” manipulating what will consciously be realized as imagery, symbolism, and eventually inspiration  in order to achieve their goal.

The resulting movie is a clever update to a typical team heist film. All the elements from a movie like Oceans 11 or even Mission Impossible are present including the femme fatale, security teams dogging the infiltrators every step, and the tortured team leader with a secretive past that directly affects the assignment.

What Nolan adds to the mix, of course, is the freaky visual representation of the subconscious mind and a brilliant narrative that increases its complexity in subtle, ever-increasing levels. The gloriously 2D visual effects displayed in Inception are amazing in their disorientating and trippy effect. The wall-walking, which was prominent in the trailers and stills, is actually used sparingly with the most impressive scenes being what amounts to a recreation of zero gravity that seems completely real and organic. The greatest trick of the movie is how Nolan builds the complexity so that each viewer, depending on his or her level of understanding, can take what they want from the film. It is much like a choose your own adventure book. You can:

• View the movie and enjoy the straight forward narrative which amazingly translates abstract concepts into an entertaining and linear story.
• Reflect on the nature of our subconscious and the origin of inspiration.
• Marvel at the complexity of a script that can plant ideas in your mind much like the characters on the screen are attempting to do with their mark.
• Watch for clues as to which reality we are seeing – a subconscious dream reality, the real reality, or Cobb’s personal limbo.
• Become stuck thinking about if we are the dreamer or the dream.
• Face existential crisis while trying to indentify what reality is.

Perhaps my favorite aspect of Inception is brought up a few times in the film and that is the origin of inspiration and ideals. There is a a lot of easily digestible psychological musings regarding how an idea can begin as a seed with the slightest of structure and bloom into a raging obsession – how that seed will grow naturally using the fertile soil from the subconscious mind. Isolating that idea from the narrative of this movie, we can see that very thing is what Nolan did (and is doing) with the viral marketing of Inception. At first all we knew about Inception was that it took place “with in the architecture of the mind.” Then we find out it is about a thief that can access a person’s dream and play with reality. That seed blooms into a full obsession with viewers world-wide, expecting a twist on reality, ranging far into the most minute scenes of the movie to attempt interpreting what Inception is really about.

What is Inception really about? There is no trick. What you see is what you get. But it is fun to play games with the red herrings left by Nolan that become a sort of viral marketing manifested as interpretations. It’s brilliant and manages to knock on the the fourth wall without ever forcing the loss of disbelief suspension.

Inception is a startling achievement that could only be pulled off by a most gifted writer and director. It is a summer blockbuster at heart, but possess concepts several rungs higher than Avatar and similar fare. If this was a novel, someone would have to call it “perfectly structured” because the story provides such a wonderful guide through the ever-escalating landscape. The ideas are incredibly complex, but the film is so simple that anyone can easily watch and follow along. We the viewers are caught in a maze, but the powerful bait at the end unerringly leads us through until we ultimately arrive at the prize while enjoying every step of the journey.

The rest of it – the interpretations, meanings of certain scenes, defining what a certain character meant – all of that is Nolan’s ace up his sleeve – his prestige if you will. Nolan has planted those ideas of a twist and the need for another explanation in our minds without ever once invading our dreams.

Congratulations, Mr. Nolan.

Coop says: 5/5