About half a year ago a film called Avatar was released, and it was hyped as a revolutionary technical marvel that would change filmmaking forever. Well, for all I know about film technology, maybe it did, but it seems the general consensus for that film was its technical achievements far outweighed its creative aspects (besides, I still haven't noticed a revolutionary change in other 3-D blockbuster films, most of them are still sucking pretty hard). I agreed with this consensus at the time; while the script was certainly formulaic and reminiscent of other scripts, and the characters stock and manipulative, I thought the story was adequate enough to keep the viewer interested in some fantastic visuals.
Now, another super-hyped movie has been released this year, Christopher Nolan's Inception. I always liked Nolan's work, and to date I don't think he's made a bad film yet (the closest he came to that was Batman Begins, which I still thought was pretty good, and a step in the right direction for the Batman franchise). I thought The Dark Knight was awesome about as much as the next guy did. I went crazy over Memento's clever script as much as my other peers probably did before coming to film school. And the more I thought about it, the more I really liked The Prestige, a rather underrated effort. Nolan's past work, combined with an impressive trailer, a premise that blurs the line between dream and reality, and some pretty cool marketing posters (Leonardo Dicaprio, the extractor! Ellen Page, the architect! Cillian Murphy, the mark! Michael Caine, the cameo!) made me pretty much convinced that Inception was sure to impress.
And then... my friends saw it. Enter ridiculous hyperbole, comparisons to certain classic films of the early 1940's directed by Orson Welles, overuse of that reprehensible adjective... epic (shudder), and fierce exhortations demanding I go to my nearest theater and see the film, emphasizing the speed at which I arrive at said theater (I'm sorry, but I'm only going to run not walk to a theater if the guy behind me has a machete and is wearing footy pajamas). As far as I'm concerned, any work of art made past the eighties (maybe nineties) being compared to something established as an undisputed classic makes me suspicious. And when three or more people I know use the word epic to describe something... well, the less said about that the better. Forgive me, but I hate these kinds of comparisons. It's just as bad in music journalism as well. When I'm reading a review and the reviewer mentions the best since Beatles or Bob Dylan or Brian Wilson, my eyes roll out of my head. Such blatant hyperbole is just lazy criticism brought about by lack of experience. No, the latest Animal Collective album is not the best thing since Sgt. Pepper's, especially since you've been comparing their earlier records to Eno's later, duller ambient efforts, so shut up.
Not that this kind of response is necessarily a bad thing in itself, though. It happens all the time. A great film or album or what have you is released, and it creates an immediate emotional response first. When this dissipates, the left brain rationalizes the right brain's earlier response. Thus, yesterday's Avatar becomes today's Dances with Smurfs. I'm no better, it even happens to me, way up here in my snooty art-snob ivory tower. I remember when I thought Kill Bill was one of the best films I had ever seen, and I couldn't wait to write my own action script where the hard-boiled protagonist kills off a series of different, colorful antagonists before dispatching the big cheese at the end. Nowadays I hate that movie something fierce. To me this seems like a necessary process. It helps people understand that they can still love their favorite films while realizing at the same time that they're not perfect. It also keeps the world from turning into a place where people go up to each other and say “Oh man, I just saw Event Horizon, it was so epic!” (shudder).
So I went to see Inception, ready to be impressed but bringing a healthy skepticism along with me. Now, let me get one thing out of the way first. Inception is fantastic. Not just a great summer action flick, but a great film period. Perhaps worthy of some Academy attention, certainly in the acting and technical departments, especially considering The Dark Knight and Avatar. I'm still debating whether this or Toy Story 3 is the best of the year so far, it's very close. Riveting, heart-pounding, adrenaline-pumping, action-packed. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll cheer. Name the stupid movie trailer cliché, it most likely applies to this film. Call the seat factory and demand a refund, you're only going to use the edge of yours.
But is it perfect? A masterpiece? Revolutionary, even? Absolutely not. The best film ever made? Well, maybe the best heist film ever made, but otherwise no. I brought up Avatar earlier because, while both films were similarly released with a lot of hype, to me Inception seems to be a yang to Avatar's yin. This film was a effects-driven blockbuster that, unlike Avatar, had a unique script while almost failing to dazzle visually as promised. If we're going to use Nolan's earlier work as a point of comparison, I'd say it's just as good as The Prestige. Is that a compliment or an insult? Like the open-ended conclusion to Inception, I'm going to leave that to the reader to decide.
First, let's talk about some of the things Inception does right:
1. As I said before, Inception might be the most creative heist film ever made. I mean it. Seriously, the premise is fantastic. While the “last job” trope of heist films and “dream invasion” plots that blur reality and fantasy are nothing new in themselves, they work together really well here. The security of information is a common theme in action and suspense films lately, and its frightening here that even in one's own head people's secrets are no longer safe, or that people can plant foreign ideas into someone's mind without any knowledge. If a man approaches you and asks you for your secrets, warning you that an extractor might steal them, how do you know if he isn't an extractor himself?
2. For the most part, the action set pieces are well done and truly suspenseful (except one, which I'll get to later). It's hard enough for some action films to create even one suspenseful scene, this one creates four at the same time. I was floored when I realized that during the scene where Leonardo DiCaprio's character, Cobb, is trying to convince Fischer, played by Cillian Murphy, to cooperate with him, it could go under at any minute because at the same time, those same characters are in another dream where people are shooting at them in a moving van. That is just amazing. And thank you, Mr. Nolan, for not releasing it in shoddy after-the-fact 3-D. I only bothered to see Avatar in 3-D because it was supposedly necessary for the experience. I firmly believe that if a film isn't going to be stunning in plain old 2-D it's not worth watching at all.
3. Not only is there effective action, but the story is very well-written and the characters well-acted. For the most part, Leo is doing the same role as he has been doing lately in Departed, Blood Diamond, Shutter Island, etc. Who cares? It's a good role, and he does it great all over again here. The supporting cast is good as well. Ellen Page, as Ariadne, dispenses with the irritating Juno snarkiness and does a fine job playing a new recruit to the team. As her character learns about the complex rules of the world of Inception, so do we. As she becomes concerned for Cobb's anxieties over his dead wife, and over the possible risks these anxieties create for the job, so do we. There's also one character, Eames, played by Tom Hardy, who's just great. As the master of disguise who manipulates the target's subconscious to get the information he needs, this character is suave, cool, and gets all the best lines in the movie. If you see him in a scene and you're not smiling, you must not be physically able to smile. And Joseph Gordon-Levitt looks great in a sharp suit.
4. There's also a poignant emotional core to the story as well. While Fischer is the sort of functional antagonist of the film, being the mark the team has to perform the inception on, Cillian Murphy makes this character likable and relatable. He almost becomes an unofficial member of the team by the end of the film. As the story progresses, it becomes apparent that there are real consequences for breaking into Fischer's mind and convincing him to dissolve his dying father's company. The more the characters realize this, the more sympathetic they become to the dilemma with his father, making Fischer's arc emotional and satisfying.
Additionally, while romantic elements in action films seem tacked on and superfluous at worst, here the subplot between Cobb and his dead wife, Moll (played by Marion Cotillard) gives the film its heart. Without Cotillard, the film would have been merely a well-directed suspenseful heist film. With her character, Inception is something really special. Cobb's relationship with Moll, and his determination to get home and see his kids, is what made me care about him. And the scene where Moll kills herself is one of the most heartbreaking scenes I've seen in a while, especially when you learn why she did it later on. If you don't agree with me, you simply don't have a heart. I'll probably fight you over it too.
5. You've seen the cliché before. “Oh no, the bad guys are coming. Quick, kiss me so they won't notice us!” It's stupid, it makes no sense that people wouldn't notice two other people doing probably the most conspicuous act possible, it comes up all the time in good movies as well as bad. It'll never go away. Well, this film has perhaps the very best parody of the cliché I've ever seen. I won't ruin it for you, you have to see it yourself.
So a pretty great flick, right? Now onto what I disliked (and hated) about the film:
1. Say, wait a minute. Aren't these scenes supposed to be taking place in, well, you know, dreams? I've got to say, these people have real boring dreams. If we're going to compare this film to others in terms of surrealness, then right off the bat David Lynch has this guy beat. He's leagues beyond Nolan in terms of dream-oriented cinema. I still think there hasn't been a more frightening film made than Eraserhead (well, maybe Tetsuo: Iron Man), and it's not a horror film. And Mulholland Drive is still the best dream movie to date. It's scary, funny, sexy, ugly, wild and gentle all at the same time. Hell, I still think it's the best film ever made, but that's just my very biased opinion.
So Lynch is the king dreams, the candy-colored clown they call the Sandman. I suppose they can't all be Lynch, because then they'd all be perfect. Even still, I can think of quite a few films that take place within a dream-state, or deal with blurred reality, that are much more creative than some of the sets in Inception, even ones not nearly well-written or directed. Here goes. Un Chien Andalou. Dark City. Videodrome. Naked Lunch. Barton Fink. Vertigo. Vanilla Sky. The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus. 12 Monkeys. The Matrix. A Scanner Darkly. Total Recall. On that note, let's go with pretty much any film based on a Phillip K. Dick-penned book (and why hasn't Hollywood adapted Ubik, anyway?). Psychonauts. The Cell. Uh... An American Werewolf in London (still the most absurd and out-of-place nightmare scene involving zombie Nazis shooting up a family in their house, and still great). The Adventures of Shark Boy and Lava Girl in 3-D, for fuck's sake.
Now let's compare these movies to Inception. The early scenes showed some promise. The “dream within a dream” sequence is novel in the beginning, and there are some nice M.C. Escher-vomit set pieces that pop in from time to time. The big teaser in the trailers with Ariadne making the city fold over itself pays off in a big way. But it was disappointing to me that these things don't happen very often in the other dream sequences. The first big set piece is a city shootout. Granted a freight train bowls over some cars in the middle of the road at one point, but still not so fantastic. Certainly suspenseful, but dreamlike? Not really. This tends to be the norm throughout the rest of the film.
I'm not saying that all the scenes have to play out like Tim Burton's acid-induced night terrors. I've had some pretty mundane, subtly weird dreams before, where my surroundings seem recognizable until something... strange happens. I think the most effective scene with this approach was the hotel/corporate espionage scene in the middle of the film. It looks like a normal hotel, but different. Too clean, too nice, weird. And sometimes things from the first dream affect the other. The building quakes, tips over, makes people float in the air, creating an opportunity for a great zero-gravity fight scene with Joseph Gordon-Levitt. It's also interesting seeing Cobb slyly convincing Fischer to cooperate with him, given that in the first dream he spent the whole time extorting him. But most of the time I was just disappointed that I was promised dreams and got people shooting each other in Range Rovers. This isn't Ronin, goddamn it, it's some dude's dream!
The other thing is, these dreams seem real. They operate on the same rules as real life. The film never takes into account that dreams sometimes do weird, unexpected shit (well, unless you count Moll invading the dreams from time to time, but this is just Cobb's interference, and the original dreamer still doesn't create anything stranger). It doesn't matter how nice a cityside cafe looks in a dream, sooner or later someone's going to swallow his own head and fart superglue while playing the national anthem on a xylophone (or something to that effect).
Now, there is a scene that sort of hints at this possibility, but it's underdeveloped. A character struggles to shoot a enemy stooge, and Eames (awesomely, I might add) dispatches him with a grenade launcher, telling the character to “dream bigger.” This is a funny little bit, but it got me thinking. Why don't they do this more often? Why don't they just dream up bazookas and helicopters and tanks and shit and just mow everyone down? Is the mark in charge of his own dream, or do the extractors get to manipulate it as well? It seemed like a missed opportunity.
2. Alright. I'm going to attempt a bit of inception. I'm going to plant an idea in your mind. You might not like it, but deep down you'll know it's true. With time, you'll come around and agree with me. Ready? Here goes:
The snow chase scene. Sucked. Balls.
I repeat. The snow chase scene, sucked balls. As in the snow chase scene opened its mouth, imbibed a set of two human male testicles encased in a scrotal sack, and gave suck like a newborn infant child.
Seriously, this was a terrible set piece. Talk about lackluster dreams, this was easily the worst. The set would have been dull for a Bond flick, let alone a representation of Fischer's deepest subconscious secrets. Additionally, there was some atrocious editing. One of the things I hated about Batman Begins was the absurdly fast editing and jerky handheld photography that hid the poorly-choreographed fights. When Batman fought Ra's al Ghul on the train it should have been the most exciting scene, and it was a cluttered mess. I was glad to see that Nolan warmed up to clarity in action when he made The Dark Knight, so it was a huge disappointment that the snow chase scene in Inception was pretty much Cobb Begins.
All the characters, Cobb's team as well as the bad guys, wear white camouflage, so it's impossible to tell who's who (until someone gets shot or knocked off a snowmobile, and then I guess you can assume it's a bad guy). The characters ski around the stronghold for what seems like ten minutes, doing nothing but shoot people. Bad guys appear, get shot. Repeat as needed. I couldn't tell where anyone was going, why they were going wherever it was they were going, and the worst part is when it's all over, Cobb and Ariadne simply walk up to the stronghold. Why did the others go through all that if they could so easily approach it? It's filler in the worst sense, and it's a shame because the other set pieces are so well done. At least it only lasts a fraction of the time and doesn't spoil the rest of the film.
3. The ending. Yes, I'm talking about the ending now. If you've seen the movie, read on. If you haven't and you've read this far, still thinking for some reason that I care about the sanctity of spoilers, go fuck yourself.
So this film is yet another that posits at its conclusion that maybe, just maybe, the things you saw weren't what they seemed. I think we can all agree that we hate the endings where a character wakes up and realizes it was all a dream (although The Wizard of Oz wasn't so bad, I guess). For my money, an even cheaper way to end a movie is to say “it was all a dream... or was it?” Let's take a look at a pretty well known example of such a film, Total Recall. This film posits the idea that Arnold's character is either:
a) actually in an overblown, lame action film on Mars with three-boobed ladies, or
b) is imagining he is in an overblown, lame action film on Mars with three-boobed ladies.
Which one do you think is real? Who cares? It's like asking someone "AIDS or cancer?" It's cheap pop-philosophy tacked on to a dumb action flick with a three-boobed lady to make the viewer think it's something more than a dumb action flick with a three-boobed lady. With a slight film like Total Recall, such a conceit is merely annoying, a curiosity. On the other hand, I think the last two seconds of Inception are disastrous, and very nearly destroy all the good will created in the previous two-and-a-half hours of screentime.
Remember what I said about Cobb, and his relationship with Moll, and how I cared about him as a character? I meant it. This film had me at hello. I cared about Cobb. I felt terrible for the guy, I wanted him to catch a break. I wanted him to get over his wife and succeed so he could see his kids. I wanted him to win. Now listen carefully. Any writer will tell you that one of the most difficult things one can do is write a character that elicits an audience's sympathy. Hell, I'm a writer, I'll tell you right now. Trust me, it's hard. Maybe half the films that are released every year, even decent ones, fail to do this. Even fewer achieve this effectively. Inception did it for me in spades.
So like I said, I wanted him to win. Let me tell you what I didn't want. I did not want to think about the possibility that Cobb's success at the end might be a great big illusion. I did not want someone to tell me yes, Cobb gets to see his kids... or does he? That's exactly what this film does. It achieves brilliantly what most can never hope to do, it gives the viewer a great character for you to care about, it shows him a wild ride as the character desperately struggles to achieves its goals, it finally shows the character overcoming impossible odds, it shows the character getting rewarded for his efforts... and then it slaps the viewer in the face.
Now I like me a good trick ending from time to time. Take Being John Malkovich. This was another heady, surreal film, it had a variety of characters with varying likability. People's fortunes went up and down on a whim, until the end when the main character, who kind of turns into a real bastard, gets tricked in the end. It's effective because he's so sympathetic in the beginning of the film, and even though he's hit the bottom in the end you feel bad for him because he meant well earlier on. Inception is not a film like Being John Malkovich. Every single character is likable, and the audience is encouraged to root for them. The twist at the end of Malkovich is expected based on the crazy logic of the film's world and quixotic characters. The trick at the end of Inception is just that, a tacked-on trick to make the audience thing "hey, aren't I clever?", a trick that the characters truly don't deserve. How do I deal with it? Well, it's open-ended, so I just tend to believe that Cobb's children are real. Basically, if you're a decent human being, you believe Cobb is in reality. If you're an pessimistic bastard, you believe otherwise.
So in closing, Inception is definitely worth checking out. Sooner or later though, someone will plant an idea in your head. Once before you had wholeheartedly believed that the film was a modern classic, a masterpiece. Never, not since Casablanca, or The Jazz Singer, or The Great Train Robbery, or Birth of a Nation, or Battleship Potemkin, or Arrival of a Train at La Ciotat, or whoever the hell the guy was who invented silver-halide emulsion, has there been a more important advance in the art of filmmaking. But somewhere you'll get the strange inkling of an idea that maybe it wasn't so great, maybe it's actually underwhelming and quotidian. The three-tiered action scenes fail to excite when they left you riveted before. The characters who seemed real and relatable are now hollow and boring to you. You leave your Special Edition Blu-Ray on the shelf for weeks, or even months. And then you pick it back up again and give it another go. Finally, when the credits roll, you forget about all the ridiculous hype of months ago and realize that it was nothing more than just a truly fantastic piece of filmmaking.
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