It's almost hard to discuss
Inception, along with the positive and negative responses to it, without looking at the traits and changes of its director, Christopher Nolan. His personal project, which would probably never have made it to the screen were it not for the success of his first two Batman reboots, is something of an intriguing oddity. Like James Cameron's
Avatar, Nolan had an early draft of the script in his drawer for years, but only recently found that he had the capabilities to make it. In some sense,
Inception is something like Mr. Nolan's attempt at delving into the head-spinning story-telling and structure of his indie breakout
Memento, with the big-budget trappings and gloss of
The Dark Knight. With expectations sky high after that second Batman film, and with enough time having passed for its detractors to step into the sunlight without fear of being ripped to shreds,
Inception arrives more open to negative (or at least non-ecstatic) reception, and in some ways, this is a good thing. For while Nolan has made a movie that engages viscerally and intellectually, it can't always engage the heart as fully as it should. Not that it isn't strong film making - keep reading and you'll see that I liked or loved lots of it - but it feels like a cautionary film, one that suggests that perhaps Mr. Nolan should (after Batman 3, which I'm still super excited for) return to the smaller, more organic roots of the film that made him a name.
Inception is that sort of film that needs to be talked about as vaguely as possible in regards to plot. What I'll say isn't much different from what you can glean from the trailers: Cobb (DiCaprio), part of a team who can hack into dreams to steal or plant ideas, needs to get one last, daunting job done in order to "get home," (what that means, you'll have to discover). The rest of his team includes Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Eames (Tom Hardy), and Ariadne (Ellen Page). Also along for the ride are Ken Watanabe as Cobb's client, Marion Cotillard as Cobb's wife, and Cillian Murphy as the group's target. Yet for such a wonderful ensemble (Mr. Hardy being the most fun), this is not an actor's film by any means. The ensemble isn't one-note, but most of them are far from being fully fleshed-out. Yet even so, with the exception of Ken Watanabe being somewhat difficult to understand, I have no complaints about anyone.
Like any Nolan movie, the women are bound to come up as a subject of debate (as one critic wrote, they tend to be "effective window-dressing" in his films), but as for me, I found both ladies were used to lovely effect. Cotillard is predictably beautiful, but also intriguing though hers is the hardest performance to discuss considering its spoiler-ish nature. For now, let's just say that it's leagues ahead of her work in her last mainstream summer outing, Public Enemies, in that she's interesting and engaging during the whole movie, and not just in the last 20 minutes. Page however, I can talk more freely about, and gladly so. She certainly creates a sharp divide among movie-goers, but after this film, I'll plant myself firmly in the "like" camp. Ariadne is, as predicted, used as the audience insert (ie: the one who can ask "why?" so that the others can explain the dream world to the audience in some manner other than a Star Wars-esque prologue scroll). But thankfully Nolan gives Page more to do than ask "why?" (or at least doesn't keep those questions strictly to the job at hand), and her one-on-one scenes with DiCaprio are some of the best character-oriented ones. Page is likable, smart, and believable as a depiction of how a "normal" person would react after being thrust into such a daunting world.
The men are an interesting story as well. DiCaprio, headlining his second head-twister this year after Shutter Island, makes an effective leading man, but I can't help but wish that Nolan had gone with someone who could more easily call for sympathy and give off shades (heh) of warmth, considering Nolan's slightly distant way of handling his characters in his writing. Still, he does the role well, and he certainly fares better than Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who aside from getting the film's show-stopping hallway-fight-turned-zero-G sequence, doesn't bring quite enough spark to his role, though his chemistry and bickering with Hardy suggests a relationship that I'd like to have a deeper look at. Mr. Hardy, however, exudes more charisma as the shapeshifting forger, delivering some nice little quips with ease and bringing in some of the needed humor. But for me, the real MVP of the men, and maaaaybe the movie, is Cillian Murphy, who has a much larger role than anticipated. Let's just say that the payoff of his story arc is the closest to a fully-realized emotional payoff that Inception has, perhaps more so than Cobb's own interests. Perhaps the problem can be traced back to something I noticed in The Dark Knight. With Nolan's (alleged) coldness in his films, emotional payoff is generated more out of a visceral response to pure intensity, than to a deep attachment to the characters. But what made those visceral moments practically enough of a substitute for heartfelt emotion was probably built on the fact that there were fewer (front and center) characters to keep track of. With Inception, we're dealing with a crew five shy of an Ocean's 11 sized set of protagonists, and the emotion elicited (and thereby the intensity of the film) is hampered as a result, which makes me glad that Nolan stopped expanding his ensemble where he did.
But now that we've taken a look at the actors of what is not an actor's film, it's time to look at, well, everything else. In The Dark Knight, people accused Nolan of overwriting scenes with expository dialogue. For whatever the reason, this is one of those complaints that I can respect and understand, yet despite repeated viewings of that film, it never really makes an impact, and remains a non-issue. For most of Inception this is also likely the case, BUT I'm curious to see how the portion of the film that deals most with explaining the rules holds up on a second viewing. Will it become slightly tedious hearing it all again, or will it hold up because of one of the true stars of the film (that being Lee Smith's editing)? It's hard to say, though Nolan and crew do keep the pace nice and sustained, especially considering the run time and increasing layering of the dreams unfolding on screen. A pair of other standouts dominate the film. First is Wally Pfister's cool, rich cinematography (which is a knockout on an IMAX screen). And even though some of the film's shootouts and chases feel slightly routine in their setups and choreography (Nolan should probably focus more on "adventure" than "action," even though that vehicular chase/battle from TDK is still incredible), they're bolstered by the occasional gorgeous use of slow-motion, and the last part of the arts/tech triumvirate, Hans Zimmer's score, a mix of the intricate and the blaring. If at time a bit too loud as it pours out of the speakers, it's still engaging as all get out, and matches the beats of the movie perfectly. Like I am Love, the blaring score is part of what helps the film shake you and make an impact, although in Nolan's film, that feeling of being shaken also comes with an actual sense of satisfaction when the credits start. Fourth place goes to the special effects, the most prominent in any Nolan film. I've saved them for last because it almost feels needless to talk about them. In a word, they're seamless, and never was I thinking that I was looking at pixels. That said, as far as how Nolan uses the effects, I sometimes wish he had gone a little more mad with his vision. Dreams aren't usually as orderly as Nolan presents them, and the dreams could have used more moments (albeit small ones) where the characters improvise creations, such as when Ariadne makes a bridge rise up in front of her as she navigates through her first dream.
So while Inception doesn't quite inspire the rapturous response the expectation and pre-hype had created like it did for The Dark Knight, this is still thoroughly engaging slam-bang entertainment, even if it is a bit cold to the touch. Nolan's direction is strong, even if some of his writing needs work to serve an ensemble who prove themselves more than up to the task of filling up their roles further were they given the material. It's also a technical marvel as previously mentioned, and can perhaps best be compared to its visual effects: engaging, intense, detailed, slick, a bit too distant, yet somehow wholly believable (ie: the anti-A-Team) because of the effort put in. Even with its flaws, Nolan's blockbuster, likely to remain the best of mainstream cinema of the summer along with Toy Story 3, does manage to accomplish what its tag line promised: The dream is real.
Grade: B+
