The Emperors New Clothes

Rating: 1/10 (24 July 2010)

Contrary to the opinions of the deluded army of comic reading Nolan fanboy geeks who have descended on IMDb, Christopher Nolan has entirely and irrevocably disappeared up his own self inflated backside with this movie. I say The Emperors New Clothes because the director will sneer at anyone who doesn't understand the film and he has thus created a perfect defence mechanism. I'm sure Di Caprio et al had in depth briefings about the narrative and can explain it verbatim but us viewers are left to work it out for ourselves. And it's so full of holes, so full of irrelevant tripe and so full of itself that it isn't easy. It's incredible that its been voted the 3rd best film of all time by IMDb users. I mean seriously, that's a joke. The fanboys all want to laud Nolan as the new Kubrick (another joke) but in doing so they have voted this tosh above ALL of Kubricks work. It's such a smug self congratulatory film from the get go and it just gets smugger as time drags on.
Now of course I appreciate that you can go too far in explaining every detail to the viewer with unnecessary script mechanics that insult the viewers intelligence. However, although you can go too far in explaining, you can also go too far in NOT explaining and expect the viewer to grasp in a single viewing what is a massively complex concept film - and one that's so badly flawed in so many areas for it to undermine the whole 'intellectual' nature of it. The idea of the film is OK and the film does have its moments but there are so many scenes that don't make sense that it spoils it entirely. I appreciate that 'heist' movies are usually procedural and that Nolan wanted to avoid that but in doing so he's created the most self-indulgent picture ever.
I could go on about the snow scene, the thoroughly implausible way these people not only do what they do but 'assemble' as a team, the oh-I'm-Christoper-so-considerably-cleverer-than-you-are-Nolan backstory with Di Caprio's wife but I'm not going to pick apart the scenes because I'd be here for hours and I haven't got the energy left after enduring this nonsense. Besides; everything could be spun that he meant this or that (he isn't as deep as he likes you to think). Inception is all fur coat and no knickers. It explains so little of what is going on that I left feeling angry. And I generally get these films so it's not a case of me being some moronic fool who struggles to follow the weather.
And billed as a completely original idea? Nah. There's obvious similarities with The Matrix, Dreamscape, Total Recall, Flatliners, Vanilla Sky, Pan's Labyrinth, Dream Demon and even one of the Star Trek Next Generation Episodes centred around the holodeck, all of which I've 'gotten' - the good ones, the bad ones, the ones you ponder for days afterwards. The fact is with this abomination I simply can't be bothered to think about it because I really don't care. I don't care about the characters, I don't care about the ending (which was excruciatingly predictable) and I don't care about how clever Nolan thinks he is. You're not mate. You've pulled a massive con with this film by creating a movie where you can call people stupid if they don't get it / like it. You get to sneer and snigger at the stupid little people. You've taken your previous successes to the movie execs and they've foolishly allowed themselves to fund your rampant self indulgence. That's what irritates me the most about this utter piffle. I understood what was understandable about this film and there are of course films where the intention is to purposely let the viewer fill in the gaps with their own imagination (generally a nice touch) but that simply isn't the case here. The story script and indeed most of the awful acting (outside of Di Caprio, Juno girl and Cillian Murphy) neither holds it together nor papers over the cracks of a weak script that's trying to be oh so deep... and badly failing.
This is over 120 minutes of my life that I will never ever get back and I simply couldn't wait for the film to end. I had lost all interest in any of the characters, their backstorys or indeed the 'mission' after an hour once I woke up to the fact that he was clearly unable to pull the film together into something coherent and genuinely contemplative. And judging by the rest of the audience and the people I was with, I wasn't the only person who left feeling bitterly cheated. I congratulate Nolan on creating hysteria, mass hypnosis and hype because he's clearly managed to brainwash a lot of the audience into making them think they've seen a clever film. That's the only inception.
Go and see this insidious fluff for a visual experience perhaps (even then; visually it's pretty overrated). But don't be surprised if you feel a strange peer group pressure to tell whoever you go to see it with that you understood it all when you probably didn't (or if you did; that you actually care and did so in spite of a dumb script).
Nolan is not nor ever will be Kubrick. Kubrick would have done this film justice - after he had rewritten the script, changed half the cast, removed 45 minutes of length and replaced it with sensible content that made the film engaging and cohesive. I fear the next set of people to be duped will be those who vote for this trite idiocy come the Oscars.
BTW I wager that Nolan watched Guy Ritchies Revolver and liked it. Congratulations Christopher, you have just descended to his level of filmmaking.
Meh.