to dream or not to dream

Rating: 9/10 (6 June 2013)

Inception is a film produced in 2010. The film is about Dominic Cobb and his road to recovery of almost everything he lost. Inception is set in the distant future, where they have developed a machine to enter someone's subconscious or their dreams. Dominic is one of the first persons to use this technique. After the suicide of his wife, Cobb found out a few things about dreams. Namely, people could lose their mind while invading dreams because they are unsure whether they are dreaming or awake, and secrets can be extracted from dreams. Cobb uses the knowledge he has on dreams to create a criminal organisation that enters the dreams of people to steal secrets and because of this and the strange suicide of his wife, he becomes a wanted criminal. While doing one of their schemes, it backfires and they are found out. Mr Saito, the man who captures Cob and Arthur (one of Cobb's friends that help him with stealing the ideas from the dreams), has a proposition for him. He asks him to plant an idea in someone's head instead of stealing it. Cobb wants to turn it down but he is offered a reward he can't turn down: his criminal status would be removed so he would be able to go home again and see his kids. Obviously this summary hasn't spoiled the end yet and hopefully it made you curious to find out the rest of the story. Inception is a science fiction thriller with quite some action. Even if you do not like thrillers, Inception still has a great plot, some amazing stunts and special effects that you wouldn't want to miss. The first great thing about this film would be the plot line. The plot is amazing; you are really drawn into the story of Cob and his impossible quest. The plot is not one straight line; it twists and turns like a river, especially when you watch the film for the second time. The first time you watch Inception, it is just a great film with some very cool action thrown in. The second time you watch it you will notice interesting details that you had missed out the first time and will make you rethink everything that happened. Those details make the film very realistic and you will start thinking about the whole concept of dreams. What do you dream about? Are there really secrets hidden in our subconscious? And how could you control your dreams? Another thing that makes this film amazing would be the special effects. Those special effects are very important because most of the time in the film was spent inside different dreams in different people. Everybody dreams, so you will know that in your dreams anything could happen. You dream of impossible things, and everybody has different dreams. That is exactly why special effects are so important in Inception. It explains why the film could only be produced this recent. Ten years ago, we did not have the knowledge and techniques yet to do justice to the dream world. Nowadays, a lot more can be made with CGI (computer generated imagery) and Nolan used it for quite a bit of shots, but not for everything. Where other directors would use a green screen, Nolan would try to do most of the things with stunts and a real dÃ©cor. For example, there was this fighting scene in a hallway that was rotating. Nolan created a real rotating hallway and made the actor play the scene while the hallway really was turning. The actor commented that he was very glad that Nolan made him do this: not only was it a lot of fun to do it, but it was a lot more realistic than just hanging him on a contraption and tell him to act like he was off-balance. Others would just put the actors in front of a green screen and let them play their parts, but not Nolan. He is convinced that doing real stunts without a dream screen is a lot better than a green screen, and does the most extreme things to realize these. There is just one small drawback on Inception, which is that it is a very long film. The film is more than two hours long. That is quite some time to stay concentrated on one thing, especially if it is as complicated as this film. If you have a small attention span while watching it and you miss some information, it is quite a challenge to get what is going on during the rest of the movie. That said, it really is the only drawback. Of course there is always the pause button, or you could of just rewind parts of the film. But then again, because it's so difficult, you concentrate intensely on the film and most don't even notice that it's so long. All in all Inception was a great film even though it was very long. The special effect and stunt were very convincing especially the ones that took place inside the dreams. The combination of the two was superb. Add the plot and you have the best thriller of the year. Or, Inception combined so many plot elements that one could consider it to be a drama, or an action, and it even contained comical elements. Leonardo diCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Ken Watanabe, Marion Cotillard and Michael Caine form a very impressive cast. Inception is a film that nearly everyone would like, except for people who watch films to relax. Cobb's story will hunt you for a long time, both in your dreams and normal life.