Overrated because it makes people "feel" smart...

Rating: 1/10 (4 December 2010)

Christopher Nolan has done some great work.
His ideas and direction singlehandedly gave new life to the beloved superhero Batman.
While the film Dark Knight will always be recognized to the new dimensions it added to the classic Batman series of movies and comics, Inception was nothing more than a dull and linear plot, surrounded by and an even duller and more linear plot.
The centerpiece of this movie was supposed to be its convoluted storyline which was scattered across multiple levels, in essence puzzle that forces the viewer to think through the movie and decipher the ending.
The concept of "levels" and or "interconnected plots" worked very well for such great films such as the Matrix, 2001 A Space Odyssey, Logan's Run, or Total Recall. Inception not only miserably fails at this but it also lacks in other places as well.
-Characters: Great actors, whom have all done great work in many movies spanning decades. However the characters in this movie came off as neutered eunuchs who lacked sense, emotion, and any sort of cohesiveness. (Sir Michael Caine and Tom Berenger's performances were appalling and the "team" of dreamers lacked screen dynamics and chemistry.)
-Action: For a dream world, the action in this movie is very unimaginative and is well within the typical Hollywood bounds. Car cash scenes where the heroes drive and shoot, building shootouts, and melodramatic bullet wounds (as always one character is wounded critically, the team must save him; however the character can still "fight".)
-Plot: This movie could have easily been over within 1 hour of rolling. Not only was Inception's "puzzle ending" blatantly obvious 40 mins into the film, but the storyline it self lacked any substance or draw. The overly complicated "puzzle piece" effect which Nolan was trying to achieve, was nothing more than the main story line being surrounded by excessive fluff and whimsical bullplop.
*I will credit the movie with one notable mention. Nolan managed to work a Matrix style fight scene (which have been overdone by Hollywood since the early 2000s) into the small confines of an elevator.
In the ending, Inception is not the great rave that many make it out to be. While the movie takes place in a "dream world", where bounds are limitless, the movie itself is sterile, cliché, repetitive, and unimaginative. This is even further compounded by one dimensional characters, and a drawn out storyline that pretends to be an enigma.
Perhaps Christopher Nolan's true intent was to make a sterile and lack luster movie aimed strictly at making today's self-absorbed and obtuse Facebook-hipster generation feel "smart".
Inception can be compared to a class presentation where the student is unprepared. To hide this, the student uses convoluted and circular logic to stammer through the presentation and pass the time. It is obvious that the student knows nothing and has wasted several minutes talking about a subject that could have been explained in seconds. Nonetheless, since the student used "big words", talked excessively, and is deemed to be in the "mainstream" the class gives a standing ovation regardless...