"Take a leap of faith" - not hard to do here

Rating: 8/10 (16 July 2010)

I'm sure I'll revisit Inception, sooner rather than later. Christopher Nolan's film has its ambitions, oh sure to be sure. But when one looks at what he is really trying to accomplish here, it's to tell a story and with verve, originality (or at least taking solid cinematic forms and archetypes and using them originally), and a point of view that is astonishing. I still have scenes and images, performances and moments, shots and details of the plot (and a kick-ass final shot especially) rolling around in my head, and I don't want them to go away. Even things about the film that I should find flawed, such as a little clunky exposition and some edits that go by lightning fast work because of what does count: we care about what happens to these characters, or at least Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), and whether or not they'll achieve this "mission" of putting an idea in someone's head.
To explain all of the finer mechanics of the plot... just go to wikipedia, or IMDb's plot synopsis. I'll just say for here that the film takes its own creation of science-fiction variety seriously. And seriously enough to take jaded moviegoers of the cineplex variety along for the ride. It's kind of like a heist plot, though not really, in that "idea" thieves- people who use dreams, shared via inter-connecting tubes (like the Matrix only more complex)- are recruited by Saito (Ken Watanabe), a big businessman of some sort to plant an idea in someone's head, or 'inception', which has not been done except for once when Cobb did it to a certain someone (he won't mention why, for a big reveal in the last act, though not a twist). That's really what you need to know - that and Ariadne (Ellen Page) will act as the audience in a sense to keep exposition going... sometimes too much on a first viewing.
And yet, for all of the characters standing around explaining things, which should be (and is) a big no-no in movies (SHOW don't TELL, remember), it can work here because a) it is such a complex concept, considering all of the calculations of time, as well as the 'rules' of sort, which are laid out so well that nothing can be too confusing for anyone, even if one wanted to, and b) the acting is so good in doing it. There is genuine emotion as well, which is something that some of the so-so or negative reviews find is lacking here (there are a handful out there if you'd believe it Nolan-heads). I say simply that if you don't find emotion during those scenes between DiCaprio and Marion Cotillard, who used such a one-dimensional character to her total advantage here and steals all of her scenes with a beautiful face and haunting delivery- then, well, maybe you got the wrong movie.
Sure, there's lots of pyrotechnics and big gun battles, but they work for the sake of this story and the circumstances too. I was worried they wouldn't, that things might be too rigid in the sense of it being dreams, why are there all of these guns and violence and whatnot. But, for me, it ended up making much more sense, in a non-sensible "Hollywood Movie" way, watching it unfold within the rules. It is much more sci- fi-thriller than a David Lynch surrealist trip anyhow, and on Nolan's terms he bases his own sense of lucid dream logic. I also really liked how the stakes were so high for the characters in dreams: if you die in a dream, for example, what if you don't wake up, but end up in a kind of dream limbo, or something bizarre like that? How do these levels affect you if you're injured or dying? This is not as simplified as in the Matrix, albeit with less 'tells' than showing it happen.
Aw hell, who cares? This is creative summer entertainment on one hand, and a brainy-emotionally-psychologically engaging story with a melancholy core. When it gets thrilling, it thrills (hallway fight, anyone), and when it needs to move, it does so, or when it needs to provide little "ooh" visual wonders like Joseph Gordon Levitt floating along and doing his part in the time-frame, Nolan comes up with wonders there too. It shouldn't require a repeat viewing, yet I do want to go back again, not to have things re-explained to me, which is unnecessary, but to revisit the characters, the multi-layered (literally) story structure, and the intensity of the direction. It's a helluva trip through the "architecture of the mind", and a very fine return to form to the 'early' sort of mind-f***er movies Nolan's made in the past.