Bwaaaaaaaah!

Rating: 6/10 (19 November 2010)

Let's get this out of the way right now: This movie does NOT make you think. I am so sick of that cliché. A movie may be challenging to the senses and demand your undivided attention, but it can't make you think. You think independently of movies, people. Stop giving Hollywood that much credit.
That said, I found Inception to be a grand disappointment. One of the things that marks other Chris Nolan projects is his love of character and development of such. Nolan has interesting ideas, but once he gets the germ of an idea, he then populates his films with rich and interesting people, giving them compelling stories, making us care about what happens to them beyond the constructs of the idea. Not just masterpieces like Memento, The Prestige, and Insomnia (one of the few English language remakes of a foreign film to get it right), but even in his "comic book" movies, Batman Begins and THe Dark Knight, Nolan's love of character and relationships is what drew us into the story.
Insomnia is about 2-dimensional characters (okay, some of them flirt with being 2.5-dimensional) who wander through a complex and admittedly brilliant idea for a little over two hours. There are some stunning visuals and some quirky twists, but for the most part I fought to stay awake because I did not care. I was told not to leave to go to the bathroom or I would be lost when I came back; well, I nodded off for 15 minutes and did not miss a beat.
And for all this primal hooting about the breathtaking final shot, a moment that elicited gasps from audiences across America ... not to sound arrogant, but I must be smarter than most audiences because I saw that moment coming. I knew how the film would end, and I knew what that last image would be.
An okay film, but not up to Nolan's standards.