More tedious than brilliant, more tiresome than cool

Rating: 4/10 (2 August 2010)

This is a tedious and boring movie that begs you to NOT suspend your disbelief and, instead, to wad up your popcorn bag and throw it at the screen. Okay, I exaggerate a little. But...
Read the insightful reviews dated 19 July: You Don't Get It. And 20 July: Boring, Too Long, Awful Dialogue. And 21 July: Not Bad But Definitely Not Genius. And 29 July: Dumb, Dumb, Dumb. And finally, for a little fun, 23 July: Blah.
Rather than rehash the insights of those helpful reviews, I'll try to add something useful...
Inside of 30 minutes I was squirming in my seat, tapping my fingers, and checking my watch. Why? No character development. No sense that a good story had been started. And thus no engagement. As time wore on I found I really didn't care about any of the characters, or their plights, or what they were trying to accomplish, other than thinking Ellen Page was kind of cute.
In an EW interview, Nolan says about his film, Memento, that he was "trying to transcend the tyranny of linear narrative." Really? A tyranny? We live in a linear narrative, Chris, but now that I know you feel that way about life, I'll remember not to pay to see your films. In the same interview, Nolan says that he was worried that his audience wouldn't be able to follow his brain-bending movie because of the complex dream-within-a-dream plot... until he lit upon (drum roll) the "heist-flick model," in which the hero-thieves explain their scheme. Yes, Chris, but that's not a very good model. And what's more, it only works if the "explaining is minimal" and the director is skilled enough to show and reveal more. It's a moving picture, remember?
Yes, the action here is pretty cool, better than the Dark Knight. The camera and stunt work are very good. The music is the same gloomy heavy-handed kind used in Dark Knight (same composer, Hans Zimmer). But the characters are essentially two-dimensional because everything is secondary to the plot, which in spite of its complexity you can understand well enough because it's all explained to you, endlessly. Even Dicaprio wasn't happy with his character and worked with Nolan for two months "adding layers" for more emotional depth (see the Rolling Stone interview). But apparently the complexity and ridiculousness of the plot buried that, or Nolan just didn't know how to deliver it (come to think of it, this may be a problem with all of his films). Plot over character. Cool factor over emotion.
You think of the great work DiCaprio did in The Aviator. And the brilliant work by Gordon-Levitt in The 500 Days of Summer. I wasn't much of a fan of Juno, but Ellen Page "made" that movie. And of course Michael Caine has made many great movies, including the recent Harry Brown. Also, Ken Watanabe in The Last Samurai. And finally, let's not forget Marion Cotillard's stunning Oscar-winning performance in La Vie En Rose. But they're all struggling mightily here with Nolan's tedious script, and their immense talent is wasted.
But of course, I'm all wrong. The movie is a huge hit. It's sure to rack up $500 million or more in worldwide box office sales. Whew! That's good news. Because then Nolan can go on "transcending the tyranny."