Not Your Typical, Brainless Summer Movie

Rating: Null/10 (23 July 2010)

Inception (2010)
*** 1/2 (out of 4)
The "kiss" platform of recent years to keep it simple and stupid has pretty much ruined movies to a point as it's rare when one can walk into a movie and have a real workout on your brain. Sure, our eyes and ears are treated to amazing sites and loud noises each and every week and some would say this causes the brain just to lose any type of reality, which might be the reason certain people (cough Lohan, Hilton and countless others) are able to be hot stories while better, more worthwhile events are simply overlooked. If one doesn't want to use their brain then it's best to stay away from this thing. It's best not to know too much about the story but it deals with a troubled man (Leonardo DiCaprio) who has made it a job to break into people's dreams and steal their ideas. However, due to a personal tragedy, he is forced to take a job doing the opposite, which is breaking into a man's dream to plant an idea. That's pretty much all you need to know, storywise, as director/writer Nolan will deliver the rest and while the end result wasn't a pure masterpiece to me, there's no way you can deny the power it does contain. Dreams have always played an interesting part in movies but no other has taken you this far into them and delivered such incredible ideas. Not only does the screenplay deliver a lot to think about but we also get plenty of action and amazing scenes of destruction. The trailer showed people just a little pinch of a city turning upside down but seeing the full sequence was something truly amazing. Other amazing sequences was the entire final hour when our group of dream breakers must enter a multiple layer of dreams with one damaging effect after another. If you're familiar with Nolan then you already know what he can do and there's no question the man has talent but it is something special that a film like this could be pulled off at all. When you're dealing with multiple characters in multiple spaces and in multiple dream zones it would be easy and common for things to just fall apart under their own weight. It's very difficult to keep you guessing from one moment to another without things either falling apart or getting so complicated that the viewer simply gives up on the film and moves on. The amazing thing is that Nolan never lets up on the gas and instead just delivers one more bit of story on top of the next and I thought it was amazing that he could keep the viewing coming along for the ride and never lose us. I think some people are going to not understand what's going on or be able to figure out the multiple levels but when you kick back and think about what you've seen I think most will see that the maze had an entrance and an exit and nothing came as a cheat. DiCaprio delivers yet another wonderful performance but he's got a terrific cast around him including Ellen Page, Michael Caine, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Cilliam Murphy, Pete Postlethwaite and a great return from Tom Berenger. Each actor does fine work in their roles and certainly help the story move along. The nature of the story is a very good one but the visual effects are just as good. Looking at all the action and amazing effects makes one really appreciate the acting, directing and story even more simply because they didn't get lost behind everything else that was going on. I don't think there's any question that one needs more than a single viewing to catch everything happening here but that's certainly not a bad thing since each viewing will deliver bits and pieces that will probably take the film into directions that you didn't think were there.