Could Have Been a Ten Star, but I Just Can't Do It

Rating: 7/10 (2 May 2011)

I give it 8.5. This is probably DiCaprio's 2nd best performance ever in my opinion (best being in Shutter Island). I'd say everyone's acting was good, with DiCaprio's second best at a solid 9 with Marion Cotillard's performance being the absolute best at a 10. The only person who bothered me in performance was Page. Some scenes, she nailed it great, like the one with her and Cobb in the dream state for the first time and she's learning how to work on building the environments, and the scene where they first meet and he makes her draw those puzzles to test her. Then in other scenes, her performance was very mediocre. Well, mediocre might be giving it a too much credit. Like the scene where she pulls Cobb aside and wants to talk to him about Mal. Her dialogue heavily suggests that she's very concerned/worried, but her tone of voice, body language, and facial expressions exude apathy, and a lack of care and interest. She really bombs the scene toward the end where they are in the mountains inside the base and they're going to go down one more level in the dream, she is sitting there with the dying Saito. She just seems so carefree and at ease in all the things I said before just like in the other scene she bombed.
As far as the special effects, they were great, which is typical and to be expected of major movie productions of today, so while it's awesome they were good, it's really nothing special these days. I can say Nolan did direct it in some ways that other directors wouldn't have, which impressed me. Take the scene where she's in the dream world for the first time, she finally gets that she can recreate the world however she wants just by thinking. She decides to take half the city and bend it up and then bend it again so that it goes over itself. Most other typical directors of today would have just had that flip over instantly. Not here, it starts off kind of slow, uneasy, then moves more freely, which is what you'd expect from somebody doing it for the first time.
Page's performance coupled with this next thing is why I gave it an 8.5. I really loved the story, it was good, fairly original, great concept, decent execution, great dialogue, but some parts of the movie seem a little too rushed. I understand that the things going on are kind of fast paced, like the fight scene in the hallway of the first level of the dream where the room rotates and they start floating in no-gravity, that scene works fast paced, but some of the others are just a little too rushed for what they are - the scene with Mel's suicide, the last half of the scene where they are first in Saito's mind, and Mel starts to mess that up, the scene where Ariadne tricks Cobb and runs down in his deepest level to see Mal. Sure the chase is fine fast like that, but the whole scene where Cobb is trying to get Ariadne to drop it and get out before it gets too unstable all the way up to the point where she finally quits being an idiot and drops off the edge is too rushed.
I really don't see it as being too complex, twisted, or bloated. Now, I do agree that it is more of that than most movies and that it won't appeal in that aspect to some people. Then again, I might be biased because I like that stuff, I mean I'm a huge fan of David Lynch and Ghost in the Shell, and believe me, GitS is way more convoluted, complex, and hard to follow than this was. It is quite ambitious and I'd probably have rated it a 9 to a 9.5 had it been extended to a good 3 or 3.5 hours to back off on some of the rushed scenes and give them a little more time to develop as well as giving you enough time to absorb what just happened before moving on to the next thing. If that was there and Page's performance was excellent, I'd have gone with a 10.
The ending, I don't know what to think of it. I mean sure, that kind of ending where there's unresolved conflict has been done before, quite often. However, the alternative (having a concrete conclusion) has been done much more. Just because it has been done before, I don't really think that should count against it, pretty much everything has been done before. Based on what I've seen from Nolan before, I don't think he'd have made that ending just to increase the fanbase and loyalty, then again, people have surprised me before, and I am cynical. I try to not factor the ending into it, even though that seems to be the biggest thing talked about with this movie. I mean come on, that's kind of the point of the ending, you make it what you want it to be.