Too contrived

Rating: 3/10 (3 September 2010)

INCEPTION The dialogue in this film is preoccupied with explaining what is happening, rather than being natural. This is very possibly due to the director feeling the concept of the film was too complicated for mere cinema goers to comprehend and instead of enhancing the film as a good flowing natural dialogue might it in fact has a tendency to spoil the film. It is also very repetitive, continually repeating the rules of inception, the inner workings of the dream construction. It becomes very annoying and I'm sure Inception holds the world record for saying the word 'dream' more times than any other.
There is a concept in teaching, developed by the Americans which goes like this, tell the people what you are going to teach them, then teach it to them, then tell them what is was you just taught them. It seems the director has adopted this method of explaining to the audience, just in case they are too stupid to get it for themselves, what the film is about and what is happening.
Di Caprio who in my opinion is a talented actor that often picks challenging roles was neither commanding nor outstanding. Partly due to the lack of any real structure to the film as the whole thing seemed too fluid and poured out in a tsunami of CGI. Additionally there is no kind of character development, something Di Caprio is generally masterful at, leaving the film feeling hollow and a waste of an otherwise talented cast. Something Hollywood studios will often do when trying to portray highly intelligent criminals (or evil masterminds) is cast British actors, and it is noticeable in Inception that director Christopher Nolan has not broken away from the stereotype.
A previous reviewer wrote "The stupid dialog is there, because Nolan did not know, how to push the plot forward in an integrated way" and i totally agree.
I've heard a lot about how Inception is the new Matrix and I must confess I have never watched Matrix, I did sit down and try, on three occasions to do so, but all three times i fell asleep out of sheer boredom. That is not sarcasm it is real. I know the Matrix story as it's so well known, whether or not Inception is the new Matrix i cannot say but I can confess it's a fairly redundant mediocre film with an over contrived plot strung together by cliché action scenes. The plot concept is not so difficult to comprehend and seems to be hyped up for what it really is. The only real thought needed is that of the closing shot, (this is not a spoiler ).. does it tip or does it keep spinning? I smell a sequel.
3/10