Not Nolan's masterpiece, but a truly original, imaginative, and exciting sci-fi epic

Rating: 8/10 (16 July 2010)

Christopher Nolan is fastly becoming one of my favorite directors. I've loved all of his movies so far and I've been eagerly awaiting his follow up to The Dark Knight since I came across the in-production page for this movie online, probably a year ago or more. Now after having just returned from the theater, I must say I was met with some mixed feelings about it. My feelings are certainly much more positive than they are negative. It is safe to say right off the bat that the movie was indeed very good. But I think it fell just slightly short of the hopes that I had for it.
Now maybe my expectations are set a little too high. It is perhaps unfair to expect any movie to be a perfect ten before you see it. But it's hard not to with many of the critics hailing this film as a masterpiece. I think with Inception, all of the pieces of a well above average, even excellent movie are there. An imaginative, very original concept, a well-written, believable, and deep script, good characters with good performances all around, adept directing, and exciting action scenes with breathtaking visual effects. I just personally feel that it's lacking a few ingredients to elevate it to the status of a true masterpiece.
So I'll start with the positives. Many parts of this movie are really quite brilliant. The storyline is extremely imaginative, and in much of the movie a treat to watch unfold on screen. I think that with one of Hollywood's biggest issues being derivative plot-lines and unoriginal ideas, this movie really stands out as a unique idea and an original film. Not only is the idea unique but it is also a deep plot-line. Sometimes it's a little hard to follow what's happening for a moment or two, but it's generally well executed in that I never felt completely lost for a significant amount of time.
the technical aspects of the film are top-notch. The action scenes are exciting and well directed, and the special effects are brilliant. Another excellent aspect of this movie that doesn't always show up quite as much in action movies anymore, due to the use of CGI, is some excellent stunt-work. The special effects work very well in this movie to give you a truly larger than life feel. Whether it's the greatest movie of all time or not, when you watch this film you know you are witnessing something much bigger than yourself.
The acting is also very good across the board. I am personally a huge fan of Leonardo Dicaprio, but I was disappointed by both of his last two films, so I was very happy to see him give an excellent performance in this legitimately awesome movie. His character is quite deep and has some monster-sized demons, and he plays it very convincingly. I also quite like most of the other actors in this movie, and I can honestly say everyone involved did a good job. I don't necessarily think any of it will be Oscar material, but they got into their characters well and were believable and entertaining.
All that being said, my main problem with this movie was the pacing. While being exciting and fun in many ways, the entire thing also seemed very heavy-handed. The script contained a lot of emotion, which in general is a good thing, but sometimes I felt that the emotion served to weigh it down rather than to bring the intensity of the movie up to that next level. It also felt too drag on a little too long near the ending. All of the scenes serve a purpose in the movie and perhaps are necessary to tell the story that Nolan was going for, but it seemed that there could have been some more effective way to arrange them to make the movie flow just a little more fluidly. It's hard to explain without giving anything away but let's just say there were a few scenes that I thought slowed the film down and distracted from the central plot-line.
The climactic final act of the movie is brilliantly layered in several ways, but sometimes the layers work against each other. The film involves multiple plot-lines, and at times it seemed to leave one plot behind for a while in favor of another. It's obvious that a lot of thought went into constructing this movie, almost like constructing an elaborate dream world, but ultimately I think the plot of the movie weighs itself down a little.
The TV spots for the film have been describing it as The Matrix meets James Bond. While I think the Matrix comparison is very accurate, I think it lacks a little bit of the overall cool-ness of James Bond in favor of a more heavy, emotional tone. Of course whether that's a good or a bad thing is subject to opinion. Another discrepancy I had about it is how to feel about one very specific, manipulative moment in the film but saying anything further on it involves a spoiler so I'll stop there.
Don't get me wrong. This is without a doubt one of, if not the, most imaginative and creative sci-fi action films since The Matrix. But I do not think that it is Christopher Nolan's masterpiece. There is a lot to praise here, but also room for improvement. I think it's a masterpiece concept that wasn't quite perfected. A little smoothing of the edges and adjustments to the pacing and it could have been a truly incredible film across the board. As it is, I still say it's a great ride that you won't want to miss. ********1/2- 8.5/10