Shades of Kubrick, but far too complicated

Rating: 5/10 (28 March 2015)

Stanely Kubrick was full of great ideas that would, maybe to others, be unfilmable; but under his hands, they were living, breathing dreamworlds. Surprisingly, for how mind-numbingly intellectual his films were, it seems they were (wisely) portrayed minimalistically. Everything that happened in Kubrick's films did not happen on screen and his scripts, while complicated, were amazingly coherent. The audience's imagination is freed this way. Of course, both Nolan and Kubrick are expressionists, but where Kubrick's films were coherent Nolan's are often frustrated into utter incoherence.
The Dark Knight series lacked real emotional power due to this over-complicatedness, despite having, at times, the "cool" factor. Inception is no different. It could be riveting and interesting IF there was intellectual breathing room. Instead, the mind is suffocated with concepts taken to extremes that would better fit a TV series than a single film.
Inception has good action and a really interesting concept, but as usual Nolan takes it as far as it can go - and than a little bit further, eventually crossing the line into incoherence. Like Kubrick, I think Nolan is one of those amazing people straddling the fence between genius and insanity. Sometimes we get the insanity.