19 July 2010

Movie Review: Inception

Director: Christopher Nolan

Somehow, I managed to drag somebody to see the latest and greatest movie release last Friday. Dad and I saw it in its Ultra Screen glory, and it was beautiful.

It’s a fairly simple movie. In terms of characters and their goals, everything is announced at the beginning. Corporate big shot Saito (Ken Watanabe) wants an idea planted in his competitor’s head. Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) wants to return to his family and see his children’s faces. Ariadne (Ellen Page) wants to help Cobb get over the death of his wife Mal (Marion Cotillard). And everyone else wants to get the job done without a hitch.

This is not a movie where you can leave to refill your popcorn bowl. You miss a scene, you’ll be lost for about an hour. Each line of dialogue is carefully placed at exactly the right moment. There won’t be entire scenes explaining a simple piece of technology; it’ll be a sentence or two and then the movie moves on. I recognize this trick in a few televisions shows I’ve seen such as Angel and Doctor Who. You have to pay attention in those too.

The movie isn’t trying to outsmart you with complicated twists. Instead, it’s leading you through a plot reminiscent of the old films of yore. It does have that old-time movie feel. Here is the character, here is his trouble, this is his goal, now watch as he attempts to accomplish that goal.

It’s amazing how Nolan managed to fit some pretty sweet action and a really cool story into one two-and-a-half hour movie. My only qualm against it was the seeming lack of an arc with nearly all the characters. Cobb and Mal were the only ones who started at point A and ended up at point B in terms of character development. But other than that, this movie is great!

My favorite scene (and this would be my favorite scene) was when Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Ariadne were sitting a building with the projections looking at them. Arthur attempts to fit into the crowd with a kiss from Ariadne, but it didn’t work. His comment was “Yeah, it was worth a shot.”

The favorite character was Eames (Tom Hardy). His sense of humor and light-heartedness was a great addition to the cast.

Overall grade: A+

1 comment:

  1. I love that scene with Arthur and Ariadne! I really wanted to see that maybe develop more..more flirting or whatever but it was a movie and Nolan had to pick and choose.

    Great review. Fantastic movie.

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