Inception
Kip
Photo credit: Wikipedia
Well, if there’s one movie every one of your friends has wanted you to see this summer, it is Inception, starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Ken Watanabe, Ellen Paige, and Cillian Murphy. After opening night, for the next week and a half I all heard was “INCEPTION! INCEPTION! LOLOMGLEONARDOINCEPTION!!1!” So, I thought I'd go check it out and see what all the hubbub was about.
It was a pretty long movie, running at approximately two and a half hours, but it keeps you interested and intrigued, mostly because you have to concentrate super hard to follow the plot. It wasn’t actually super hard for me after I got the general concept of the film, but it was still a very new and incredibly interesting concept.
The plot is very hard to explain, but I will do my best. I follows a man called Dom Cobb (DiCaprio), who is a professional thief. The interesting part is his expertise. He is very good at conning information out of subjects in a dream, to be sold to employers, or later used against the victim. The particular job he accepts in the movie is a very challenging one. He must venture into the mind of the son of a dude who owns a huge energy company (Murphy), named Robert Fischer. Fischer is about to inherit the entire empire because his father Maurice is terminally ill. The difficult part is what they are supposed to do inside his mind. Cobb and his team are to convince the younger Fischer to break up his fathers empire, but he has to believe that he came up with the idea himself. To tell him to do that is easy, but to convince him to do that without telling him forces them to go super deep into the subconscious. That is, a dream within a dream within a dream. Throughout the film, they battle Fischer’s mental projections, which is basically the characters generated his mind to protect itself. This adds extra coolness to the film because they are constantly battling the projections in every dream, even as the situations change around them. In one scene, Cobb’s associate Arthur (Gordon-Levitt) has a fistfight within a hallway with a projection — only gravity is constantly changing directions — and they constantly are falling from floor to the ceiling, wall to wall, all while frantically trying to land punches on each other.
While they are dreaming, external influences can change what happens in the dream. For example, in the third layer of dream they are in a van, being pursued by some fragments of Fischer’s subconscious that are trying to protect him. In this case, they appear as emotionless bodyguard/hit men-type people with guns. One of their crewmembers is driving the van, and the rest of the group are all in the second level of dreaming. The driver eventually drives the van off of a bridge, and as it falls, the folks asleep in the van feel the fall, and everybody in the second level experiences zero gravity for the duration of the vans plummet. However, the zero gravity effect feels much longer in the 2nd level, because as you delve further and further into the subconcsious, time changes exponentially. That is, three seconds in the third level will be more like three hours in the second level and so on.
Overall, I thought it was a great movie. Mostly because of the ideas it presented and how completely it went into detail on all aspects of dreams and what could possibly happen in a dream. I thought it could’ve been done better. Believe me, it was still pretty fantastic, but I think it really had potential to be legendary. The main part that needed work seemed to be the beginning and the planning stages. They barely went over that at all. Cobb gathers this “dream team,” this big compilation of experts, and they barely go over them at all. We don't get to learn about their background, previous jobs, nothing. Also, they didn’t go over the entire plan. It could have been much greater in my mind if they had it more Ocean's 11 style, much of the movie would have to be dedicated to the planning, because it was such a complicated film, I think that would give the film a little more closure, as well as make it a bit easier for the audience to understand. Otherwise, visually, plot wise and with the ideas presented, Inception is fantastic. However, there is a lot more the director, Christopher Nolan, could’ve done with it.
But don’t let my opinions disparage you. I would highly recommend this movie to anyone. It is definitely worth seeing.
Oh, one final thought: If you are easily disoriented or confused, don’t see it with your friends. You will probably start blurting out dumb questions to the annoyance of everyone sitting near you.
Final judgement: Go see it.
It was a pretty long movie, running at approximately two and a half hours, but it keeps you interested and intrigued, mostly because you have to concentrate super hard to follow the plot. It wasn’t actually super hard for me after I got the general concept of the film, but it was still a very new and incredibly interesting concept.
The plot is very hard to explain, but I will do my best. I follows a man called Dom Cobb (DiCaprio), who is a professional thief. The interesting part is his expertise. He is very good at conning information out of subjects in a dream, to be sold to employers, or later used against the victim. The particular job he accepts in the movie is a very challenging one. He must venture into the mind of the son of a dude who owns a huge energy company (Murphy), named Robert Fischer. Fischer is about to inherit the entire empire because his father Maurice is terminally ill. The difficult part is what they are supposed to do inside his mind. Cobb and his team are to convince the younger Fischer to break up his fathers empire, but he has to believe that he came up with the idea himself. To tell him to do that is easy, but to convince him to do that without telling him forces them to go super deep into the subconscious. That is, a dream within a dream within a dream. Throughout the film, they battle Fischer’s mental projections, which is basically the characters generated his mind to protect itself. This adds extra coolness to the film because they are constantly battling the projections in every dream, even as the situations change around them. In one scene, Cobb’s associate Arthur (Gordon-Levitt) has a fistfight within a hallway with a projection — only gravity is constantly changing directions — and they constantly are falling from floor to the ceiling, wall to wall, all while frantically trying to land punches on each other.
While they are dreaming, external influences can change what happens in the dream. For example, in the third layer of dream they are in a van, being pursued by some fragments of Fischer’s subconscious that are trying to protect him. In this case, they appear as emotionless bodyguard/hit men-type people with guns. One of their crewmembers is driving the van, and the rest of the group are all in the second level of dreaming. The driver eventually drives the van off of a bridge, and as it falls, the folks asleep in the van feel the fall, and everybody in the second level experiences zero gravity for the duration of the vans plummet. However, the zero gravity effect feels much longer in the 2nd level, because as you delve further and further into the subconcsious, time changes exponentially. That is, three seconds in the third level will be more like three hours in the second level and so on.
Overall, I thought it was a great movie. Mostly because of the ideas it presented and how completely it went into detail on all aspects of dreams and what could possibly happen in a dream. I thought it could’ve been done better. Believe me, it was still pretty fantastic, but I think it really had potential to be legendary. The main part that needed work seemed to be the beginning and the planning stages. They barely went over that at all. Cobb gathers this “dream team,” this big compilation of experts, and they barely go over them at all. We don't get to learn about their background, previous jobs, nothing. Also, they didn’t go over the entire plan. It could have been much greater in my mind if they had it more Ocean's 11 style, much of the movie would have to be dedicated to the planning, because it was such a complicated film, I think that would give the film a little more closure, as well as make it a bit easier for the audience to understand. Otherwise, visually, plot wise and with the ideas presented, Inception is fantastic. However, there is a lot more the director, Christopher Nolan, could’ve done with it.
But don’t let my opinions disparage you. I would highly recommend this movie to anyone. It is definitely worth seeing.
Oh, one final thought: If you are easily disoriented or confused, don’t see it with your friends. You will probably start blurting out dumb questions to the annoyance of everyone sitting near you.
Final judgement: Go see it.