Inception

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Kevin Bacon WTF???

I'm not one to agree with Prestige or defend Inception but the idea is fairly original as original goes; this cannot be argued. It's not based off of any kind of novel for a start. As a film it is mediocre because Nolan forces action genre into it without integrating it with the stakes of the plot. Also there was a lack of attention to aesthetic composition, which I think this film definitely deserved due to its "elegant" sort of plot where the main players are like "skilled artists".
 
Now that Inception is out, this is how I rate Nolan's filmography thus far...



1. Memento
GRADE: A
2. Batman Begins
GRADE: A-
3. The Dark Knight
GRADE: A-
4. The Prestige
GRADE: B+
5. Inception
GRADE: B
6. Insomnia
GRADE: B-
7. Following
GRADE: C+

AVERAGE: B
 
Very nice little review, Meat. I find your story about your tiredness quite amusing because I had to wake up very early to see Memento with the rest of my class mates when I watched it for the first time, and was tired thinking I was just going to sleep through the film. Obviously that didn't happen. Yep, Nolan's films will do that stuff to you. Who needs a redbull and coffee when you have a Nolan film, eh?
 
I've thought an obscene amount about this film. I'm tired of it, and I don't want to praise it anymore other than for choosing a very interesting topic that I care a lot about.

I don't know exactly what D means... maybe a 60% or 6/10. I initially gave it a 7/10, and I'll stick with that.

I agree with all of Yoda's criticisms of your criticisms though. I don't think they're as strong as others I've seen on this thread.
 
I guess the cheese stands alone and I am the cheese.
Bitterly disappointed! Grossly bloated with special effects, overly
saturated with testosterone and ultimately, a rip-off of two former
80's films, Brainstorm and Dreamscape, both of which I found to have
much more substance. With a two and a half hour runtime, it quickly
became no more than an assault on the senses. Once again, I was duped
into wasting my money on an over-hyped behemoth with no redeeming
qualities. As for the performances, DiCaprio came off as being slightly
miscast, it seemed to me that he had to work a little too hard to get
his lines out. It felt like Page, whom I do adore, was thrown in at the
last minute for some token estrogen. I do always love to see Caine in
small but meaty roles, this one was small but hardly meaty. AKA
'Inception: The Imax Experience' says it all. Basically, just a
showcase for SFX on a very big screen.
 
I wonder what people would have wanted instead of action then, I would have gone with Holden's pink elephants with lasers, but we know that won't happen unless it was directed by Lynch (instead of elephants, there would be rabbits though).

I think the action was absolutely necessary.. I don't see a lot of things not happening in the film if it wasn't scenes like car chase, etc..
They just provided thrills..

How else would saito get shot??
Everything would have been just easy right? just walk in a dream & walk out..

Before repping someone negative, atleast reply to the post, suggesting what's your opinion,
 
It's a joke.

The other dude probably did see it in 3D...because he was on something.

Anyway, I owe a few people replies here, particularly given that I went back and saw the film again, but I've got real-world concerns for the next couple of days. Will try to post again soon, though.
 
I'd have to agree with planet news, actually. I didn't really feel it was "goofy," but it did kinda stick out. It didn't seem like the kind of thing someone would say in that situation...but, if I can qualify my qualification even more...it did feel kinda random in an authentic way. IE: people react to extreme things in weird ways, when it's all in the moment. I guess the only thing I can say for sure is that I really noticed it, which felt strange. It doesn't bother me much, though.

I think I kind of like the sudden cut away, though. The suffering on his face would feel obligatory after more than a few moments. It'd feel too much like "let's showcase this actor" scene, to me.
 
I get what you're saying planet news: often times an opinion doesn't matter as much as the decisions someone takes to formulate it. But what people are trying to tell you is, on this forum, negative repping is an action reserved for an extremely negative post, in which the poster attacks another poster instead of addressing the post itself, or says something that's in general inconsiderate, or continuously, annoyingly interjects with posts that add nothing to the discussion. Positive rep is awarded for a number of reasons: a funny or clever post will usually get one or two, giving one's own honest opinion on a movie with no strings attached will normally get more, and offering a well thought-out, mature, and respectful response in support of or in opposition to another post will get you the most. They aren't just a gimmick. They are a way of telling people that this is a post worth reading. For example, I always look at the posts with the most positive rep because I'm sure that person had something worth my time.

Anyway, I agree that some of the less important action in this film did not live up to the smart action of The Dark Knight. I think in particular of the first time they are attacked in Yusuf's dream (the first level). Arthur, Eames, Saito, and Fischer Jr. are in a car and people in front of them shoot at the car with automatic weapons; Arthur drives in reverse, hits some cars, and people behind them shoot the car with automatic weapons. He shifts back into drive, and the people in front of them shoot them again. This continues, noisily for about four minutes until Cobb swoops in and hits a guy, rather inelegantly, with the side of his car. It's boring, but I think Nolan did it with a purpose. The group did not expect Fischer to have been trained to defend his subconscious, they are ambushed and figuratively and literally have no way out. I think that scene was just trying to illustrate that.

But, again, I agree that it failed to excite me. In The Dark Knight, every action sequence was choreographed so beautifully that it flowed into the picture naturally. For example, Nolan didn't linger on the truck flipping over; it made for an amazing stunt for about five seconds, and immediately segued into Batman driving toward the Joker, resisting hitting him. This led directly to the Joker's capture. The scene wasn't made to stand alone. It astounded, but it was relevant and moved the story forward. A similar scene was the one in the under-construction skyscraper, where the guards were disguised as doctors and the hostages were made to look like bad guys. It was a fine example of how Batman's always right, always serving justice, and always at odds with the cops who make him out to be the bad guy. Inception had several shootout scenes that just distracted from the driving narrative. They did not tell us anything about the characters, except that they knew how to ride snowmobiles or shoot huge guns. I agree with your sentiment that Nolan could have found a more clever, dynamic way of showing Fischer's projections.

But to dismiss all the action in this movie as being distractions from the originality of the story is kind of stubborn. You want Inception to be a sophisticated thinking man's science fiction movie with no time for fun. But Nolan's goal from the start was to make a film that dealt with these huge ideas of inspiration and dreaming in a heist movie setting, with homages to James Bond films and The Matrix. Long, senseless shootouts and fight sequences were inevitable. But that doesn't mean all the action detracted from the movie.

We agree that the zero gravity and tumbling hallway scenes were excellent action scenes. But what about the tension created in synchronizing events on four different levels of consciousness, each with differing laws of time and space? This is about as good an example of cross-cutting as I can find in a movie, and if cross-cutting between this many narratives this quickly does not equate to action for you, I don't know what does. On the first level, we have a speeding car being assailed on all sides, while Yusuf struggles to keep the car from tipping over, and getting rid of Fischer's projections. This directly effects the people in Arthur's dream, leading to that hallway sequence. There are many more examples of 'smart' action in the movie that, as genesis pig says, keeps the viewers fully engaged, but this post is already long enough.
 
[spoilers="inception"]
I can agree on the bit about the kids, they seem to be exactly the same way he remembers them to be.

the 2nd thing is highly unlikely, but I was having a thought that maybe Saito planted the idea in cobb's mind...[/spoilers]
 
Great point. That's a total narrative cheat if we're really to believe it was all a dream.

Also, I'm almost certain that, earlier in the film, Cobb wakes up (and is therefore on the "top" level) and spins the totem, and watches it stop. How could that happen if even the top level is a dream?

To my mind, these are two separate, definitive marks against the theory. It's a fun theory, but it's also a bit too obvious for a filmmaker like Nolan. The whole thing reeks of amusing red herrings to generate speculation, rather than actual clues as to some hidden meaning.
 
TDK just sorta rocked so hard on all fronts it's not even fair.

Yes! The editing in this film creates the most literal visual interpretation of "climax" since Requiem for a Dream, i.e., the van HITS the water, Ariadne goes up, up, up... Cross cutting was brilliant there.

But when I watched it the second time, I just ignored the snow shootup completely. I just waited for it to end so I could think about Dom and Mal's conversation more. The van's super slow-mo was pretty awesome every time they cut to it, so was 0-G, but the snow shoot-up was just a major disaster in holding interest or looking like it mattered at all. I didn't really give a **** the first time either.

I'm just saying that these choice by Nolan made certain parts of the film just fall completely dead and that's bad, bad news for any film. 7/10 is as much as I can give it guyz. 70% of the film was good.
 
INCEPTION

First off I have to say this movie is far from the typical movies that I go and see and at first when the story began I thought I was going to be blown away and the storyline was going to go so far over my head I wouldn't enjoy it. Within 30 minutes into the film I totally started to grasp bits and pieces of the plot of the movie and tried to sort them the best I could in my own brain. Some of those early thoughts wee correct conclusions and others were way off. I continued to plunge into the storyline as hard as I was plunging into my 6 dollar box of popcorn. The story started to become more and more clear as the characters began to develop and the sense of what the plan they had was going into place. The acting was superb as DiCaprio was brilliant as was the rest of the cast. It wouldn't be a Juno review without a mention of Ellen Page who I thought did a great job in her role. This role for her could definitely land her more prominent type roles in the future. The main thing this film brought to me with it's brilliance is it opened my mind to go deeper into my own exploration of the film world.
 
OMG, I have no idea what you guys are talking about, lol. I don't remember "jesus christ" at all... I only saw the movie once.

I remember Leo crying and I have the image in the mind, but I have no memory of what his words were.
 
I agree except for Batman Begins and Insomnia. The two should be switched. Maybe you accidentally
 
Highlight spoilers:

[spoilers=Inception]
Yeah, I think the ending refers to moment he becomes permanently locked into his own fantasy world.


Two reasons support this:


The kids. The story is the authorities believe he's responsible for his wife's death. So he's a fugitive on the run. At least a couple of years must passed since this tragedy. But notice when he's united with his children, they appear to be exactly the same age as his memory of them.

He spins the top and goes to play with his children.


But His wife's deepest darkest secret, the one that she kept locked away was his top. The totem object in which he differentiates between what is dream and reality, but remember this is not her totem object but his.[/spoilers]
 
I should probably add that I really don't want it to sound like I'm all pissed off, and I hope my reply doesn't offend you, viddy. I'm glad you wrote your review and I never want to discourage anyone from writing what they think. You just happen to have written the kind of review that tends to get my goat a little, and I've tried to explain why, what I disagree with, etc. I hope you take it in that spirit, and not as some kind of attack.
 
I think the top level is reality as well. I just think the addition of the spinning top was, heh... over the top, is all. I knew the second I saw it, that tons of people would be talking it up and trying to sell me on how brilliant it was. Hey, good for Nolan. He's used a few tricks to get more people interested in his movie.

I seriously think though, that anyone saying this is his best film ever, really needs to go back and see some of his earlier films. I'm not even including TDK (which I think is his best), no, I mean, start with Following and then go to Memento. They are so much simpler but so much better than Inception.

The only reason I see that most folks aren't piling on this movie as a big dumb action flick is because it has apparently made many of you stop and think about some things, I guess.

That's cool though, Zombie movies make me stop and think about stuff too. Probably why I like them so much.
 
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