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Rating: 5 out of 5
Inception! One of the best movies EVER made. Every time I watch this movie, I enjoy it more and more. One of Christopher Nolan’s best works. Dude did spend over ten years writing the script for this film. How did we get here? How else, having a weird dream, which made me want to watch this movie again. Now, I have been having some bizarre dreams lately. Maybe I should get them analyzed. Well, this last dream, I dreamt that my co-worker and I were engaged. If you know us, you will say it would never happen, but that is beside the point. I wake up and go downstairs, and she is making breakfast. She stated she wanted to talk about the wedding. If anyone knows me, I don’t like talking about weddings. Plus, my best man will be my brother or turtle. We start to argue when I hear someone walking down the stairs. It is the wonderful Cowboy, the cat, who is wearing his little bear hat. Cowboy sits at the table and starts talking to me. I tell him he needs to find a job, and he tells me he is too cute to find a job and that we should go to the club to pick girls. His mother is getting on me about telling him to find a job. The dream proceeds to get even more insane. I did wake up very confused about the whole situation. Why couldn’t I have dreamt of winning the lottery? Inception is the monster hit that Nolan made after doing the Dark Knight. Who would’ve thought that making a movie about dreams and how they work can be so entertaining?
The film opens up with Dominic Cobb (DiCaprio) lying on the beach before being dragged away to a room with an old man in it. The man speaks about a dream and life that he once had before switching to another scene. Cobb is the best in the game at inserting oneself in a person’s dream and extracting vital information from the subject. During a job of corporate espionage, Dom and his associate, Arthur (Gordon-Levitt), try and steal valuable information from an elite businessman named Saito (Watanabe) for the rival company. The job goes terribly wrong as Saito knows what is happening. This forces Dom and Arthur to go on the run. Dom is also a wanted man as he is believed to have killed his wife. This makes him leave his kids behind and stay abroad from the states. Saito tracks Dom and Arthur down and gives him an offer he can’t refuse. Perform Inception on his rival, Robert Fischer (Murphy), the heir to an energy business empire that would control over 50% of the world’s energy. The job is to give the idea that it is best for Fischer to split up his father’s business empire. In return, all charges against Dom will be dropped and he will be able to see his children again. Cobb takes the job and must form a team that consists of an architect (Page), forger (Hardy) and a chemist (Rao) to perform the job. As the group begins to plan the best way to do Inception, little does it know that Dom is hiding a secret that could jeopardize the whole operation
Now, I remember first seeing the trailer long ago and thinking, “Why would Nolan make a movie like this when he made a MONSTER hit in the Dark Knight?” It’s because Nolan is a great storyteller and has a way of making one of the most basic ideas into a phenomenal movie.
What more can I say about how this movie is incredible? The story is fantastic, the visuals are outstanding, and the emotions that you feel for Cobb as he tries to get home to his kids is touching. Nolan does everything so perfectly and well crafted. First, the whole movie revolves around the idea of Inception. What is it? In the film, Inception is the process of embedding a thought in the mind of a subject in such an incredibly subtle manner, that they end up thinking that they came up with it on their own. One cannot say think of something, and then they think of it. The reason that doesn’t work because they know the actual source. Simply, they must think of it on their own. It sounds way more complicated and harder to do, as shown in the film. That is the whole movie. A team trying to plant a simple but complex idea in a person’s mind.
What Nolan also does so well is he literally explains how a dream works. How a person’s subconscious can create worlds. When Cobb and Ariadne are sitting at the café, he tells her how dreams work and how they steal information. Yet, when you’re listening to the conversation, Cobb states if she ever remembers the beginning of a dream. This was a mind blown observation. Yet the whole scene was exceptional, seeing that the subconscious is like piranhas. Also, how one shouldn’t create something from places they know because they can get lost in their own dream. The idea of a totem that signifies if you are still in a dream. Also, the idea of how time is used through each level. The purpose of a kick to wake some up because they have the feeling of falling. How five minutes in the real world is like an hour in the dream world. How time starts to slow down as you enter each level. Now I will say this, the dream within a dream within a dream was becoming confusing. DAMN! How many dream levels does a person need, but maybe that would explain in movies when a person wakes up twice. Damn you, horror movies! All great works and concepts that play strongly to the film.
What I like about this film is that each level is an entirely different environment and feel. Level one is a city with a lot going on with traffic and the rain. Level two in the dream is a high-class hotel where everyone is sophisticated and proper with suits and dresses. The last level is an all-out military compound structure in the winter land on a mountain range where everyone is suited up in military outfit and weaponry. What is also great about this film is that everyone has a specific role in the team. There is an architect who designs the dreams. There is also a forger who can resemble any person in the dream. There is also a point man who does all the research. A significant aspect to not make it so confusing.
The overall most excellent aspect of this film is the cinematography of many of the action scenes. Damn, they are good. The first one is pretty much all the fight scenes with Arthur. As the van slowly tumbles round and round down a hill in one dream, Arthur fights in another dream in a hallway. You see, the hallway spin along with the van. It is a thing of beauty. Nolan also uses slow-motion action to show the effects of how one thing affects another. When we see the kick for the very first time. Dom is slowly dunked in water; the corresponding result is water filling up the scene of the room.
Every actor did a fantastic job in this film. Leo was his usual self. He actually made you feel for his character because all he wanted to do was get home. You can tell by the stress on his face that he just wants to see his kids and do anything to see his kids. Gordon-Levitt was the perfect sidekick for Dom. He seemed to bring the type of calmness and straight thinking that Dom needed. Now the best character was Tom Hardy’s character. He was funny, charming, and a straight-up badass. Page was also excellent. I have to admit she was quite annoying in the beginning but was happy that she was in the film. She played that tough person that saw reason in everything.
BIG UP to Hans Zimmer. The man is a certified music genius when it comes to making a film score. Zimmer’s music fits so damn well that it honestly makes this movie go. It is like a nice big cherry on top of an awesome sundae. Zimmer’s music helps with the pacing. When things get crazy, the music speeds up the pace in a significant way. The theme song is one of the best ever made.
The ending will have you thinking for years to come. No matter how many times you watch the movie, the end will still get you after watching this film. I still don’t know what to believe, but I will say that Nolan did a fantastic job concluding the film that way.
Inception is a great film. Who would’ve thought that a movie about dreams would be so good? The film is highly enjoyable. If you can get passed the dream within a dream within a dream aspect, then you will love this movie. Nolan’s taking ten years to write the script definitely shows in a great way.
