Prepare to be disappointed.

Rating: 8/10 (16 July 2010)

Inception is a failure and a disappointment. It's mostly an excuse to include action sequences that, it turns out, the story doesn't require. The film's trailer looked and sounded better that the film itself. The film is ambitious but in director Christopher Nolan's hands it just doesn't work. Like in his Batman films Nolan spends too much time on showing the preparations before the main course; in this case it's finding the team members, explaining what they do, and then what should be done. When all this starts to seem boring and unbelievable an action scene is included. On top of this the film's concept seems phoney. It's never really explained how several people can enter the one dream. In this case the audience has to abandon reason and just go along with it. Even so, the film still doesn't deliver. I didn't like most of the team members because they weren't necessary and because the actors were miscast. I only liked Leonardo DiCaprio's Dom Cobb and Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Arthur. Except for these two there weren't any good performances. Scenes that were supposed to be filled with emotion or grandeur fall flat, for the most part. Ellen Page's Ariadne is the architect. She's shown working on paper models of buildings, but then the team enters the dream world that she designed - and WOW - it's a fully-realized city with countless details. Fantasy is absent from these dreams though. You won't find Godzilla there somewhere, but you will find several gunmen. Except for a few instances, attempts at deep meaning and characterization don't work. The film is also long; it goes on and on and doesn't entertain. The second half is comprised mostly of one action scene after another, and most of these are just shootouts.
There's a lot that's wrong with Inception, but some things in it are sort of right. It works as a noir thriller. The cinematography is quite good. Two parts of the film that I most looked forward to seeing were a little impressive. One is when Arthur fights against a few gunmen in the hallway of a building while the center of gravity keeps changing. This was a good idea for a fight, but the fight lasts for like a minute. It's also not as impressive as the Batpod scene from The Dark Knight (2008). The second part that I liked was the dream world that Cobb and his wife Mallorie designed for themselves. That city was definitely awe-inspiring. Too little time was spent there too, however. Nolan should be given credit for trying something new but very little of it is interesting. His previous film, The Dark Knight, was good but much overrated. His direction remains cold; it's solid but uninspired. Like DiCaprio's previous film, Shutter Island (2010), Inception has its moments. In the end, however, it's totally pointless. Some reviewers called Inception a masterpiece. In their case they don't know what a masterpiece is or they're deceiving themselves. This film is nowhere near a masterpiece. I guess it didn't help that I watched a masterwork like The Godfather Part II on the night before I went to see Inception in the theaters. In The Godfather everything feels like it belongs, and the film has real meaning. In the theater I could tell that most of the audience didn't like the film. One woman kept looking around to see how others were reacting to it. I don't recommend Inception. It's just another pointless summer blockbuster; it tries to be smart but fails. Much of it was influenced by great Japanese anime like Paprika (2006) and Akira (1988). See the anime instead.