Give him the kick

Rating: 8/10 (18 July 2010)

Great ideas grow like a cancer. Sometimes you never really know where they come from.
Chris Nolan has never really had a totally original idea. Like Tarantino, he knows other movies so well, their ideas creep into his work, either intentionally or not. While my words on originality may come as inflammatory, my feeling toward his talent, and films is quite the opposite. He's good - real good. But he isn't original. Nobody is. This is the 21st century folks and its all been done. It is the way he's showing us these familiar things, that keeps us coming back.
Except for Di Caprio, who never really convinces as a brooding widower/father, the rest of the band is perfect. Not that any of them are actually interesting, the plot is the real character in Inception. Hans Zimmers score is majestic and hugely epic and Wally Pfister's familiar clean visuals make it easy on the eyes.
Much like a new roller-coaster at 6 Flags, Inception is a ride we've been on on before. Dreams, reality and all that jazz, but this one has a deeper dose of rabbit hole. We have a heist film set in the frame of corporate psychological espionage - whatever the hell that is.
We get Matrix style pseudo reality and weightless gun fights. We get The Game and Total Recall style onion layers. We get the old man in the bedroom of cubist proportions from the Kubrick 2001 finale. Maybe one too many James Bond ski battles. And I'm just getting warmed up. The wife story rings hollow - in fact, it's downright boring. Exposition goes in circles and we never do get enough Watanabe Ken. But it's that layered time of the tiered dreams that makes this one go boom. The elevator that can't drop and that van that just falls forever with the cameras over cranking at 150 frames per second or more. But we don't want it to hit the water. Go deeper Cobb, cause I don't want to get off this one yet.
The final joke with the unending spinner? This is Nolan's dream, not Cobb's.
It's not visionary, it's not original, but just like the meandering Dark Knight or the wretched nonsense of the Prestige, or the titanic plot holes of Memento, Inception is a rabbit hole that owns you til it's over. This ain't art or philosophy to ride to the top. It's just one great kick all the way down.
8/10