Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
7/18/10
In this age of near-total
franchisification of the movie business, moviegoers are increasingly at
the mercy of filmmakers' own ambition to create something original.
Studios want their big-ticket directors putting their names behind comic
book adaptations and remakes and as long as they oblige them, chances to
see a truly original story become fewer and farther between. But
if they use their work on those pre-sold blockbusters to increase their
bargaining power, they can become our agents in the battle for new ideas.
Exhibit A: after directing the masterful Batman sequel The
Dark Knight, Christopher Nolan could leverage Warner Bros. to greenlight
pretty much anything in exchange for signing to do another. That
“anything” is Inception, a brilliantly complex and imaginative sci-fi
extravaganza he wrote himself. An all-star cast (barely anyone speaks
that movie fans won't recognize), colossal production values, a 2 1/2-hour
running time: Inception has the full weight of its studio
behind it without having anything to do with an old TV series or a popular
toy. And Nolan doesn't waste his chance, turning in another great
movie on a sensational resume that includes the two best Batman movies,
the classic thriller Memento and the deliriously original The
Prestige, which he made between the previous two Dark Knight outings.
Inception takes its time constructing an intricate web of make-believe
science and interlocking dreams-within-dreams-within-dreams before turning
on the burners for a stunningly complicated and suspenseful finale that's
as good as anything I've seen this year.
Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio)
is an expert at Extraction, the art of placing he and his team into the
dreams of people with secrets to hide and stealing that information for
his employers. After such a mission into the mind of energy executive
Saito (Ken Watanabe), the mark turns around and makes him an offer.
He needs not Extraction, but Inception, the placement of an idea in someone's
mind, so skillfully that they will believe it is their own. The target
is Robert Fischer Jr. (Cillian Murphy), who has just inherited the world's
largest and most powerful energy company with the death of his father (Pete
Postlethwaite), and the idea is to break up that company to prevent its
monopolistic power from crushing Saito's. Cobb's right-hand Arthur
(Joseph Gordon-Levitt) believes Inception is impossible, but he disagrees,
particularly since Saito offers a payment too good to resist: the
dropping of mysterious charges that have made Cobb a fugitive, unable to
return home to his children for years. So, he assembles his team,
with brilliant student Ariadne (Ellen Page) designing the multi-leveled
dream they'll use, chemist Yusif (Dileep Rao) mixing the drugs necessary
to keep everyone locked in the same dream, and tough guy Eames (Tom Hardy)
using his special skills to impersonate various people Robert knows.
It seems like an easy job, until Ariadne discovers something very dangerous
about Cobb's subconscious: his late wife Mal (Marion Cotillard) still
stalks his dreams, working against the team's goals as she tries to drag
him down to the lowest level of the dream world, where a dark secret explains
their leader's certainty that Inception works.
We're all fascinated by dreams
because no one really understands how and why they work, and Nolan has
used that creepy uncertainty to craft a world in which scientists have
turned dreaming into cold, hard science filled with dark, scary spaces.
All the extras in Cobb's dreamscape dramas are manifestations of the dreamer's
subconscious, and over time they become more and more aware of an alien
presence in the dream until they finally converge on and kill that invader.
With special training, dreamers can “militarize” their minds to attack
with special weaponry and tactics. And Mal's malevolent presence
in Cobb's mind is a wonderfully disturbing mystery that builds to a series
of memorably creepy revelations. But even when the movie isn't being
weird, it's always interesting because Nolan's given a LOT of thought to
the logistics of invading a person's dreams. At times, Inception's
midsection walks the line between deliberate and dull, but the payoff is
worth it. A four-tiered climax set in multiple dream levels all with
their own physical laws and rules would be impossible to pull off without
all the effort put into the groundwork.
Visually, Inception
is a feast, taking some basic dream facts (that noise of sensation from
the real world that leeches into your dream, the dreaded falling “snap”
sensation that awakens you) and using them to build a shared dream world
that is the combined manifestation of the subconsciouses of all involved
as well as the physical state of the dreamer whose mind they're sharing.
The images are remarkable: Ariadne bending Paris down the middle
and stacking half the city upside-down on the other half, Arthur struggling
to complete a life-and-death mission while the world around him spins like
a hamster wheel, and two characters walking through a massive self-created
dream city as it crumbles to pieces around them. And Hans Zimmer's
epic score further cements the sense that you're seeing something special.
Because Inception's
story is complicated as all get-out, the movie benefits from having its
characters all be fairly straightforward and played by distinctive and
familiar actors. Once again, after the wonderful Shutter
Island, DiCaprio finds himself as a man who can't trust his surroundings
as he runs from an unspeakable secret. But Cobb is almost entirely
shorn of the trademark Leo cockiness, and even his confidence barely hides
a weary desperation. And when his secret comes out, it lives up to
the hype. Page has a great chance here to show how far from the hipster
Juno she can play and she's great as the conscience of the team.
Watanabe is a mountain of charisma and actually manages to make you root
for a guy who's trying to move Heaven and Earth for a business advantage.
Hardy also oozes cool and Gordon-Levitt does a great job of seeming comfortable
with and knowledgeable about a job that's pure fantasy. Murphy fleshes
out a pivotal role skillfully, making sure we assume that whatever's best
for Saito's bottom line is also best for Fischer's soul. And Cotillard
is perfectly pitched as a phantom who looks like Cobb's late wife but is
really nothing but the self-loathing of guilt incarnate.
Inception may not be Nolan's
best film, in fact it's not even one of his top 3, but it further underscores
that not only is he one of the most talented writer/directors of his generation,
but also can be trusted to deliver top-shelf results under the spotlight
of sky-high expectations as well as anyone. I'm grateful to be treated
to another of his unique visions, and now I can't wait for that next Batman
movie. If everyone worked this way, we'd all be happier moviegoers. |
