Perception

Rating: 4/10 (24 July 2010)

You have this basic idea and the story, they are very good. And boy did the have money. And the CGI is spectacular, yes.
Further on this:
Inception is constantly VERBALLY explaining what is happening, why it is happening, how it's relating to things explained earlier and so on. The rules, the plot, the inner conflicts. Even at the 2/3rd of the movie, they are still explaining basic rules. I don't see why this was necessary as most of it is repetition. You get the same stuff over and over again, supposed you didn't get it for the first time. And again: VERBALLY. Exactly like in your average, random Venezuelan soap opera.
Inception does almost not have any scenes. As far as I'm concerned, movies are about scenes. Here, you'll only be able to remember certain sequences, because it's all just one big a montage of sequences. It's the montage of the master-plan from Oceans 11 for 150 minutes and it's exaggerating.
The score is non-stop blaring, all the darn time, even when people are just talking to each other, music is building up constantly to give you the perception, that there are serious things going on. It's just annoying, painful for the ears and pointless. Generally important scenes are in no contrast to basic scenes. It's one big video clip.
Characters. I don't remember a single name, as there is no kind of character development going on here. It's just some well dressed people. All the dialog is used up, for basic explaining like "for dummies", rather then building character, relationships, or just being generally cool dialog. Occasional tries sounds like tag-lines or slogans while being just plain unintelligent. Also, this is leaving the actors no space to - well - act... which is a waste of the great cast.
Now all these things are very amateur scriptwriting mistakes, or if you prefer: it's a stupid movie. But no one seems to notice as Nolan does everything to convince you that you are watching something meaningful.
The blaring music and the hectic editing, the fact that there are permanently 3 scenes of action cut together into one sequence underlined by an incredibly severe score, it's just there to distract. Because in fact the movie has nothing new to show us. Separate the sequences and you have the most basic and outdated action b-movie there is. Car chase. Fire fight. Explosion. Present it confusing enough so it seems complex. Same goes for the plot. The rules of the dream world are not complicated at all, you are absolutely able to sum it up in two sentences, just try. The Matrix set up it's world with a 10 minute sequence and we all got it where the whole theme is about equally, or more complex. Now Nolan is either deliberately confusing people for effect or simply because he doesn't have the skills as a scriptwriter to set up a movie. Neither of the versions seems too noble, but I guess it's a combination of those.
Now the fact, that no one really seems to have noticed ALL THIS this is just a total riddle to me. Even famous film critics praise this movie as ground breaking and brilliant and I just can't see, where I am totally stupid, or why I'd construe all these mistakes into the movie, when in reality, they just weren't there.
It's just malpractice, as what you have here is basic movie making rules ignored in the most inelegant fashion possible and then compensating for it with - well - money. Don't get me wrong, it's not knowing the rules and then breaking them, it just looks like not knowing the rules. It's what you could expect a first year student at a mediocre film school to do where his teacher then asks him to start all over again, with the first book. And it's just so "in your face". For most of the time, there is really nothing more then cutaways, the characters describing what is happening and Hans Zimmer smashing while you see expensive CGI and explosions.
But everything just seems so damn serious and exclusive and the music is really dramatic. How could this movie not be good, right? But it's a trick. It's the concept of visceral over-stimulation brought to a new level and I'm shocked that it works to the point where after almost a century of film making THIS is regarded as one of the best movies of all time.
IMDb TOT 250 #8. With The Godfather. Pulp Fiction. Schindler's List. The Shawshank Redemption. One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest. 12 Angry Men. Inception.
4/10