Before I went, I thought I would jot some quick notes on this film, which I saw last weekend. First, it is so rare now to see such a well-made movie, especially an expensive Hollywood one, that I was a tad shocked. However, any lingering doubts that The Dark Knight was a fluke on director/writer (with an emphasis on the latter) Christopher Nolan have officially been dispelled. And this is from someone who never really was a huge fan of Leonardo DiCaprio. He can act, certainly, but he’s just never been one of ‘my guys.’ He’s quite good here, though. (Speaking of my guys, Michael Caine has what is basically an extended cameo in the film, but damn, it’s always good to see him.)
Nolan’s smartest concept, which the film is based on really, is that you can enter various layers of dreams, each of which moves at a faster timescale than the previous one. This allows for the long climax of the film, in which the characters run around on FOUR different levels of dreamscape, including one that is really just an old-fashioned Bond movie.
Nolan does an amazing job here, both as a writer and director. In terms of the later, he ably manages several things that would sink nearly every other director. The film is seemingly 80% exposition, because there’s so much stuff to establish, and yet is never for a nanosecond even remotely boring or even uninteresting. Indeed, as most of you will know, my most general complaint about modern film is that movies now are almost invariably 20 to 40 minutes too long. Well, Inception is 2 and a half hours, and damn if there is a gram of fat on her. Most films are overlong now not because of their length, but because they are longer than they need to be. Inception is EXACTLY as long as it needs to be.
Speaking of things that would sink a lesser director, not only does Nolan have to shift focus from one of the four realities to the other to the next during most of the film’s last hour–and without once confusing the viewer–but one of the levels involves what is basically a Mythbusters-style physics thought experiment in how you achieve a certain physical effect in weightless surroundings. Kudos to Nolan for making this plot thread just as interesting as the ones with shooting and stuff. Indeed, he’s smart enough to know that these scenes, while themselves really, really fun, also afford the audience a necessary breather between the more frenetic stuff. Amazingly, Nolan has figured out what has eluded nearly every other action movie director these days; that each scenes should be designed to integrate in service to the whole film, and not just stuff so much action and crap blowing up as to exhaust the audience before the next scene starts.
Christopher Nolan is the man James Cameron, for all his success, must secretly wish he were. May he continue making movies for a long, long time.
Anyway, feel free to use this thread to discuss this or any other recently seen movie.
