Dreams are not even %50 human mind control... Seeing the Inception from a more realistic, Tarkovsky perspective

Rating: 6/10 (9 August 2010)

~MY REVIEW CONTAINS SEVERAL REFERENCES TO TARKOVSKY, A QUOTATION FROM ROGER EBERT AND ANOTHER FROM CHRISTOPHER NOLAN'S INCEPTION SCRIPT (for detailed info check below the end of this article)~
Ideas need to be enriched while the roots are kept loyal, especially in Sci-Fi. Above everything else, aware of the fact that while the story is taking place in several dimensions of dreams, there is no link to the real-life. My first point is about this huge story development deficiency. The only link to our universal earth dimension is Michael Caine character and the children, and they're frozen, they're playing out there in the garden, we see from behind. This is the first thing why the whole movie is para-psychologically inappropriate.
I said para-psychologically inappropriate, 'cos today psychology is in the point that dreams expose supernatural(or meta-physical) skills of human mind. If you are implanting an idea through a dream into someone's mind, it's not that easy, THE BALANCE OF NATURE WOULDN'T EASILY LET YOU DO THAT. As an example I want to compare the Inception with "The Eternal Sunshine of The Spotless Mind". There, Jim Carrey was going back time in his dream trying to identify the person who is dating with his fiancée; but he ends up with facing a supernatural vitality covering the person's face. The way Nolan explains is this: *(1)* "Never recreate places from your memory. Always imagine new places."
When the time comes where Saito explains why he hired Cobb for the implantation, this is all we get: *(2)* "You remind me of someone... a man I met in a half-remembered dream. He was possessed of some radical notions" So the most important question one ever needs to ask "How did they all start to dream implantation?". There is no answer nor explanation to it. Whereas in its ancestor, "The Minority Report" was quite brilliant at explaining the technological advance.
Compare with Matrix, the dreams are your guides to the reality, you're not a guide to someone's dream. Matrix gives you a clue of understanding how some people's lives may change with their dreams and visions. It had this inspiration that Neo became a hero out of a loser. Dreams are able to do that, as Wachowski Brothers taught us. Another comparison can be done with the good and evil side. Nolan never divides people into good vs. evil as Batman or as Memento or any films he's done. But for someone's favor, Cobb is hired by business man to implant an idea into another business man, which doesn't do any thing with the good. *(3)* "The only condition of fighting for the right to create is faith in your own vocation, readiness to serve, and refusal to compromise"
Sci-Fi loves impossible, but it also denies the practical errors. Inception's plot is theoretically fine but practically slow off the mark.
Just like Roger Ebert said at Chicago Sun, Inception's story can either be told in a few sentences or not told at all. Ebert's approach to criticize Nolan's earlier work was even more harsh. *(4)* "How does a man with short-term memory loss, remember he has short-term memory loss?" (for Memento). Some injuries can go engraved someone's sub-conscious, so he didn't even need to remember it, he was just living it. Though Ebert was right on one thing, that if Ellen Page hasn't been enrolled in the movie as a new chosen one to this confidential job, the whole movie was almost meaning nonsense.
The things that are likable is Marion Cotillard participating as a independent virus in dreams, going in and killing whoever and whenever she likes. Ellen Page is being used to create spaces in dreams, so that the missionaries will be able to create totems that tell a person whether they're dreaming or living the reality. The only totem without Ellen Page was the spinning of the whipping top in the sleep house. Also the last dream which Di Caprio is having on the airplane was cut in the half as if it was meant for to be continued. It was the only dream that made me believe that someone is dreaming, whether it's Cobb or Arthur or any of the missionaries. 'CAUSE DREAMS NEVER LAST.
*(1)*(2)*: from Quotes for Inception at IMDb / *(3)* : from Andrei Tarkovsky quotes at thinkexist.com / *(4)* : from Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times, July.14.2010