Inception was the best movie I have seen this year. Toy Story 3 is a close second, but Inception takes the cake. I have never seen a movie so thought provoking and stunningly provokative since the Matrix. This movie is better than The Matrix though. It goes into more depth, it has more heart, it has better acting (*cough*Keanu Reeves is a robot*cough*), and it has a better all around story. Let’s get right to it.
Inception is the story of Dom Cobb (played by Leonardo Dicaprio), a man who specializes in dreams. His job is to take ideas from the subconcious and sell them to other companies. At the beginning of the movie, Saito (played by Ken Watanabe) hires Cobb to do something different. Instead of taking or “extracting” an idea from the mind of someone, Saito wants Cobb to plant or to perform “inception” on the son of a rival CEO (played by Clillian Murphy). Saito entices Cobb by telling him that he would be able to see his children again because apparently Cobb will be arrested if he enters the USA (because of as-of-yet unnamed crime that he didn’t do). Cobb’s friend and partner (played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt) doesn’t think it’s possible, but Cobb knows it can be done and takes the job. So, as in any heist film, Cobb assembles a team. There’s the “Architect” (played by Ellen Page), who serves as Cobb’s psychiatrist. The Architect is in charge of creating the world of the dream for the incepted’s mind to populate with it’s subconcious. There is the “Forger” (played by Tom Hardy) who can shift identities inside dreams, who isn’t given much exposition unfortunately. Finally, there is Yusuf (played by Dileep Rao) who supplies the sedative heavy enough to support a dream within a dream within a dream (yes, the movie goes there). The characters are the only fault of this movie. Yet it isn’t really a flaw also. The problem is that there is not enough character development to really flesh out these characters. It also isn’t a problem in that if the movie did flesh out characters, it would make a 2 hour 45 minute movie undoubtably 3 hours and 15 minutes.
The script/writing is supurbly done. The whole movie is a tight-rope walk because so many things are going on that are so important to the story that if anything is out of place or wrong within the context of the movie’s logic, everything becomes undone. The dialouge between these characters range from witty banter to intellegent discussions to wise teachings to deep, heartfelt moments. There were some cheesy moments, but it all but dragged it down. Christopher Nolan (writer, producer, AND director) also does a fantastic job directing. He puts everything together so magestically I start to feel like I’m watching a circus act. He juggles everything very well.
The acting was very well done. Leonardo Dicaprio showed a very vulnerable yet intelligent and experienced character. Every supporting character does very good too, but one really stuck out for me. Mal, Cobb’s “ex-wife” (played by Marion Cotillard) which should get Cotillard an Oscar. Her portrayal of such a haunting character is genius in my eyes.
As in any Hollywood movie, there are some explosions and effects. From what I’ve heard though, some of the dream effects were not done with CG which amazes me because there is one scene, which I will not spoil, where one character ends up in zero gravity. It was quite entertaining and very relalistic (or as realistic as zero gravity in my mind is).
All in all, probably one of my favorite movies now. As nearing perfection as few movies can, this will become a classic as The Matrix did and will (hopefully) stay that way.
Final Verdict:
Go See It
Two Thumbs Up
5/5 Stars