Director: Christopher Nolan.
Writer: " " "
Starring: Leo. Juno. That guy from '10 Things I Hate About You.' The creepy guy from 'Red Eye'. And of course, the wizard Michael Caine.
Budget: $130 Million
So how much money has it made?: Slow down Gordon Gecko, it's made $825,124,816. Not quite Avatar, but close enough to make the blue space kitties nervous.
Year of release: 2010.
Watched Inception last night for the first time and have to say I’m having trouble determining what all the fuss is about. Ever since his whole Batman phase, I’ve had trouble taking Christopher Nolan seriously; all his movies just come across as phoney. Then again, I never had much patience for the ‘superhero’ thing. Trust the concept of an all powerful benevolent being with magical powers to come from America, the global hegemon that has actually convinced itself that its job is to bring free-market values to every corner of the globe whilst simultaneously fucking up everything it touches. I know that The Dark Knight was all about grittifying the Batman mythos to give depth to the character, but the whole thing just seemed like a pro-government ‘keep the maniac masses in line’ diatribe, spliced between action sequences that probably cost as much to film as an American bachelor’s degree.
The concept of Inception is good enough: A group of thieves that make a living off of stealing secrets from within the depths of people’s minds, but the flick was slow moving without being dramatically engaging. Attempts to explain the science behind dream invasion were laughable, as Mr. 10 Things I Hate About You quips: “Five minutes of real time equals one hour of dream time!” Is that so? Maybe you should inject yourself into a coma so you can spend another five hundred days with that chick from Evil Trees. This is my problem with most American movies, we’ve seen all the actors before a dozen times over and they all seem to play the same fucking role, so much so that you start referring to them as the character they most memorably played. When my girlfriend asked me about what was going on in the movie, I said something like: “Fucked if I know, I think Juno is some kind of architect, like in those Matrix movies.” Leo seems to have escaped this, shedding his cute boy skin and actually attempting some pretty cool roles (“Take the diamond, huh?”) and maturing as a result, but as for the others, they all just seem to be painting by numbers.
I guess I was also expecting Inception to be much more playful than it actually was. Whenever something went right for Leo, whenever his plan seemed to be going off splendidly, I half wished he would say “Boom baby!” and then commence with some insane dream infiltration sequence, complete with up-tempo jazz music and the sipping of a martini at the conclusion. What we got instead was dialogue that took itself too seriously and some aesthetically pleasing low gravity action scenes.
I’m sure that I probably watched Inception in less than optimal conditions. I was tired and it was just so fucking hot (curse these Australian summers). I had found a working electric fan on the side of the road that day, but I had to turn it off because I was paranoid it was interfering with the volume of my television. So my girlfriend and I were hot, cranky and not in the mood for any tricky shit, which Inception is bursting at the seams with. The complicated nature of Inception’s plot and the stunning special effects meant that I was simultaneously trying to keep track of which dream within a dream within a dream the characters were in as well as pontificating on how the crew might have achieved particular shots (“How did they do that crazy low-gravity hallway fight scene? Did they have an actual room that spun around like in that Micallef Pogram sketch? Or did they just use computers? Oh fuck, now they’re in the snow? Jesus.”) I also watched it on DVD and it seemed like a film that ought to be viewed on blu-ray on a big HD TV. But as Mick Jagger once famously crooned: "You can’t always get what you want..." Especially when you possess a degree that is as vocationally useful as a tool-box filled with diarrhoea.
In fact as I debate whether or not using those Stones lyrics in this review is too much of a cliché, the more I’m convinced that the song perfectly complements Inception. Only you’d have to omit the concluding lyric: ‘But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need!’ Because ultimately, nobody really needs to see Inception. Sure it’s fun while it lasts, but it’s ultimately superfluous. The only thing you’ll take from it is a sense that Christopher Nolan is very clever, and a headache. But don’t take my word for it, I’m just a punk with a film blog and if I knew any better, I’d be making the fucking things.
In fact as I debate whether or not using those Stones lyrics in this review is too much of a cliché, the more I’m convinced that the song perfectly complements Inception. Only you’d have to omit the concluding lyric: ‘But if you try sometimes, you just might find, you get what you need!’ Because ultimately, nobody really needs to see Inception. Sure it’s fun while it lasts, but it’s ultimately superfluous. The only thing you’ll take from it is a sense that Christopher Nolan is very clever, and a headache. But don’t take my word for it, I’m just a punk with a film blog and if I knew any better, I’d be making the fucking things.
Three Stars:
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