Misses a bulls-eye so narrowly that it hurts

Rating: 8/10 (19 July 2010)

A lot has been written about this film already so I won't repeat the obvious. It is, overall, a very good movie. But it has a big problem.
The emotional core of Inception is DiCaprio's character and his "relationship" with his wife, Mal. Whenever the movie is telling that story it's fantastic. Whenever it's not, it's not.
The end result is a mostly-great movie with about 45 minutes of unnecessary explosions stapled on.
The ultra-generic action sequences (with one notable, Matrix-esquire exception that ends much too quickly) are tiring and unexciting, and show a distinct lack of imagination. The Dark Knight demonstrated that this otherwise-gifted director has trouble building coherent/engaging action scenes, but the gimmicky nature of the Batman franchise made it forgivable. In Inception that failing takes center stage since the last 45 minutes demand almost non-stop action that Nolan is frankly unable to deliver. Placed beside The Matrix, or even this-year's Kick-Ass, the snowy final battle in Inception is downright boring and threatens to bring the film to an anti-climax. Fortunately the resolution of DiCaprio's storyline is fantastically engaging and brings the rest of the movie up with it.
I wonder if Nolan is wasting his considerable story-telling talents working in a genre he doesn't love. This man does not want to film action; it's obvious. Maybe he should just stop trying and focus on telling the tales he wants to tell instead.