I prefer my dreams...

Rating: 5/10 (19 December 2010)

OK, Inception can be the best rated movie of 2010, but not for me. I'm not questioning its quality as an action movie but yes as a sci-fi production because after The Matrix this movie seems much more illogical exactly for trying to be more realistic and fully coherent and cohesive. Also, it's impossible not compare it to The Matrix as Christopher Nolan already stated that the idea for the movie came from movies like The Matrix, The 13th Floor and The Dark City. That's so inspired by these movies - mainly The Matrix - that some references to it are a lot clear: the red and blue button in the briefcase (like the red and blue pill), the architect, a group which each one of them has an specific ability, the idea (meaning the virus), the dream soldiers (as the anti-virus), the totem (like the telephone), among others...
Who pays attention to dreams or is familiar to the basics of it knows that the movie is right in some points but lacks of several other characteristics. When you're in a lucid dream you're able to control it and direct events and happenings, that's why you're able do dream a lucid dream and back to it even if you wake up for a short time. In unconscious dream you're unable to control it, that's why we mostly wake up when we die or when we fall, because in a lucid dream you're able to 'defend' yourself as you wish. The world of unconscious dream, where most of the film tries to reproduce as the characters are in a pre-coma state, is a lot more confusing and chaotic than it seems. It could have been much more explored if wasn't given so much attention for action sequences. The only time where seems like a real and chaotic dream is when a train crosses an entire street. At that moment I thought that things would be visually interesting, but it never was.
Trying to give more attention for the action and not for science, the characters have a magic pack that connects several people into a dreamer's dream without reason. In The Matrix they have those huge machines that are connected in their minds to fully transfer people to a dream world previously built, making 2 or more people share the same dream space. That makes The Matrix more acceptable in this explanation than Inception. Scientists believe that sharing a dream is possible as the brain is moved by electric impulses, so, if we have a main board able to unify and decode those electric impulses, this could be possible. But in Inception what really connects them all? Just a powerful sedative? Are they super heroes or what? That's why I think that The Matrix is much more successful when exploring this idea, because it starts from a solid scientific one.
While The Matrix deals with an electronic generated world, in Inception we are talking about a dream where there are cities, people, mobiles that works, explosives, car crashing, people dying and bleeding and whatever... but never the power of imagination. Work about the inception of an idea is a great plot, and the barriers for that could be anything than just a bunch of armored guys shooting and exploding everything.
Inception for me is just a redone idea, the same as Avatar is to Pochahontas, but Inception doesn't give me anything new or add something interesting among other interesting ones I've seen before. The media calls it one of the best movies of 2010 and one of the best sci-fi movies of the time and that actually insults my intelligence because there's nothing new there. But the industry needs to make money from something times to times and they found Inception a great money machine. Technically the movie is superb and a great action flick, but I don't see anything more from it.
I give 5 stars just as an action movie, because thinking as a sci-fi, I give it none. There's a lot for nothing... or maybe, a lot for just in the end the movie explains that incept an idea is so difficult as I trying to convince you that this movie isn't so good as it seems.