Dreaming of a better movie

Rating: 4/10 (25 July 2010)

Superficially, you know when this one winds to a close that you've just spent two and a half hours with the results of an over supportive studio giving Christopher Nolan, fresh from his huge Batman successes, way too much leeway.
It's a bloated, convoluted, over-extended and ponderous film that has almost no reward in store for viewers when all's said and done. But still, even as you secretly hope it'll be the next Ishtar or Cutthroat Island, you know it's wrong to think like that. You know there was still a truckload of vision and good intentions involved in the making of Inception, and you keep thinking that maybe this is the rare summer movie to attempt delivery of an intelligent construct to generally numb and switched off audiences.
The truth lies somewhere in between. Inception suffers from some factual failings that can't be denied - it's too long, for one. Then, the plot turns out surprisingly thin, so in order to fill the runtime, Nolan and Co resorted to severe repetition, so we're put through the same sequences time and again. Yet, there's no tension. You can figure out the entire affair for yourself in advance. Do not expect any twists when going into Inception, and actually the most tense moment comes right at the end, although we suspect that's because you're worried the suspense is leading into yet another scene.
Then, we get to the performances. Nobody does a really bang up job here, although no one falls too short of the mark. DiCaprio delivers basically the same character he was in Blood Diamond and Body of Lies, except he doesn't yell at the people on the phone as much this time. Otherwise it's the same reluctant gun for hire routine. He plays the oddly named Dom Cobb, a specialist in extraction. That's not a dental reference, it just means he's a dream hacker, able to infiltrate the sleeping minds of others and steal valuable information. This dream world is presented as a virtual reality straight out of The Matrix, including hostile locals and bizarre physics.
Cobb gets hired for one more big job by a powerful industrialist (Ken Watanabe), who needs his talents to interdict a rival family (Cillian Murphy and Pete Postlethwaite). But Cobb can't do the job alone, so he puts together an entire crew, including assistant Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and architect Ariadne (Ellen Page), among others. The job becomes increasingly complicated, though, mostly because Cobb is haunted by his beloved wife (Marion Cotillard), who's somewhat of an antagonist, albeit a rather mundane and annoying one.
What ensues exposes the failings of Inception. The narrative is just too long for it's own good, and presented in a manner that promotes repetition over ingenuity, despite the vision we mentioned before. Inception takes obvious cues from previous science fiction and surrealism entries, but at least it's honest enough to not dwell on the technicalities of just how Cobb and his posse manage to penetrate other people's dreams like that. Aside from the positive, there are mostly negatives, as you're compelled out of some basic decency to keep watching, hoping for things to take a swing in the right direction. That never happens, and Inception remains a middling exercise in over extension start to finish.
Most of the effort and talent here have evidently gone towards the visual richness of the feature, which doesn't disappoint. There are some excellent effects, landscapes, costumes and settings involved, but they're not enough to distract from the overall emptiness of this movie. Were it 30 minutes shorter, then maybe Inception could have been commendable for aesthetic endeavor, but as it stands, those pluses are drowned by the lacking storytelling on show. While not a complete disaster, Inception will get you started on the path to your next movie outing real quick.