Inception

Can Christopher Nolan do any wrong amongst fans? The man has become the silent Jerry Rice of Directors, making big plays whenever he’s thrown the ball and stepping aside gracefully until it’s his time again. Inception was described to me by a friend as having left him with the same feeling of wonder that he felt when he first saw The Dark Knight. For me it was all pistons firing correctly: original story, awesome visuals, ease of immersion into the world portrayed and a complementary soundtrack.

Inception is the type of movie where spoilers are non-existent; it becomes such a personal experience that your outcome will be different from mine. I can tell you the entire plot (which I won’t) and you still won’t get it, and I can tell you the plot and conclusion that I came up with and you will go in there, watch it and come back and tell me I am wrong. For this you may look at my damn near fully loaded score and tell me that I am just a fanboi for the crappiest movie of the summer and you would be just as right as me giving it a near perfect score. It is all about what you take away from Inception, while I do judge many movies that seem cut and dry as to why they were deemed good or bad, aside from technical things, the story itself is one that cannot be easily judged. Now doesn’t that make you want to at least give it a watch?

I will share a little secret with you folks that are still on the fence about seeing Inception, Leonardo DiCaprio may be plastered all over the trailers and posters but the true action star of Inception is Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). While the DiCaprio/Page scenes will force you to think and put the pieces of the puzzle together, Arthur’s scenes will keep you action junkies in your seats with his skills and combat smarts. Ken Watanabe of The Last Samurai fame and Letters from Iwo Jima plays Saito but I was unable to understand him much throughout the movie due to his low voice volume clashing with the music. You may or may not remember Ellen Page (the young woman who played Juno) but she was a delight to watch as Ariadne. Her scenes with Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) seemed very genuine even more than the ones Cobb shared with Mal (Marion Cotillard).

After seeing movies like Jonah Hex, my eye has gotten somewhat ready for CGI influenced scenery. However, watching the world of Inception and the people running, gunning and dreaming within it seemed so refreshingly different. It felt real, as if they were there on location, and for good reason being that Nolan had his world built outside of a computer generated framework. Inception uses the computer to assist the reality, not have it create the reality. It is something to marvel at in this rough summer of lackluster movies. The other positive to having the scenes look so real is in the immersion that you are able to experience within the world. There is nothing more distracting than watching a movie and in the back of your mind the little voice goes “wow that looked reaally, reallly bad”. Inception had me leaving the theater thinking about our very existence. It has made for interesting roundtable discussion with other viewers and it is a movie I expect to watch several times over.

Inception is a must-see, it is Spicy, it is intelligent and it is the type of writing we can appreciate for years to come. It has been a bland summer and I know your tongues are salivating for the Spice, so go see Inception and give your palette a treat.