Inception Review

The Matrix Minus the Monotone

By Christopher Allen

(Note: Although I\’ve tried my best to avoid spoilers, I advise that anyone who plans to watch the movie do so before reading this. The only reason someone should read this detailed review is if her or she was unsure about watching the movie.)

Unless you\’ve  been hiding under a rock for the past six months, you have probably heard of and hopefully seen Inception. This masterpiece of cinema is the brainchild of director Christopher Nolan, the same person behind  The The Dark Knight. For those of you among the hordes of The The Dark Knight-worshipers, two actors from The Dark Knight were recast into Inception. These were Michael Caine and Cillian Murphy, who portrayed Alfred the Butler and Scarecrow, respectively.

So the big question everyone asks is, “Does this movie live up to The Dark Knight?”  I’m going to defer from answering that because A) I don’t want Heath Ledger fans chasing me around school with penny-filled socks and B) that’s a very subjective judgment to make. Unlike the lackluster parade of summer movies we’ve been graced with this year, Inception actually requires active thinking over just staring at a screen with moving pictures. The Dark Knight was more of a spectacle: you sit back and watch as Batman growls like he has a hairball, while the Joker runs around killing every secondary character in the story. In Inception, you have to keep your eyes and ears open, as running off to the bathroom in the middle of the movie will be a deathblow to your experience. However, if you can understand the preliminary fifteen minutes of the movie, you’re more than capable of understanding the rest of the movie.

Inception follows the story of Cobb, an extractor who enters people’s dreams and steals or implants information from/into the subconscious of the person being extracted. For a reason that is eventually explained, Cobb cannot return to his children back in the United States, but is given a chance for a clean slate by performing inception on the heir to an  energy conglomerate. While the premise of the story seems unadorned, thing start getting really interesting once characters start entering dreams.

However, I want to stress that Inception is not a six hundred pound gorilla of a movie that will stomp your brain into jelly if you try to watch it. The beauty of Inception is that it optimizes its complexity, in that it explains only what needs to be explained. The perfect example of this is the dream-machine that the characters use to, you guessed it , go into dreams. Cobb doesn’t go down into a fifteen minute monologue that explains how it works, or why it attaches to your wrists and not your forehead, or why the activation button is a dull orange rather than a bright red . You take it at face value and accept it so you can ponder more important things in the movie.

That was one of the flaws in The Matrix. Since so many decide to draw comparisons between the Matrix trilogy and Inception, I’ll join in the fun and do the same (The Matrix spoilers ahead).  The first and most lethal flaw of The Matrix is that Neo becomes all-powerful after the first installment, so any action you see him partake in after the first movie becomes meaningless, because you have no real reason to fear for his safety. The second flaw of The Matrix is its complexity. While watching the trilogy, you are bombarded with hitherto unexplained philosophy from a dozen different belief systems, all of  which fail to make the movie more sophisticated and enthralling.

Inception takes care of these two flaws quite easily. The characters only have slightly heightened abilities in dreams, but just the right amount so you still fear for their safety. Furthermore, dying in a dream under the right conditions does turn out to be a bad thing. Instead of having Confucianist teachings thrown at you during a gun fight, you get several phrases that are discreetly inserted at several key parts in the film that reappear throughout the film. And when they do reappear, they reappear with gravity. For those of you who have already seen the movie, recall the whole, “You’re waiting for a train…” line is a great example of this.

The true genius of Inception is how its plot and level of action coexist peacefully. Most movies that have this level of action handicap their plot to accommodate for the action . Inception uses action scenes only when it needs to,and has  just the perfect amount to keep the gentlemen interested and the ladies not revolted. And when the plot does deepen near the climax, the action remains present but doesn’t try to hog the center stage.

The fantastic cast is another boon  that Inception is blessed with. Leonardo DiCarpio is as masterful as ever, portraying a brokenhearted widower to the tee. Ellen Page does a wonderful job at  serving as Cobb’s conscience, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt plays his role as the serious planner perfectly, while his interactions with Tom Hardy’s sarcastic and quick-witted character make the film all the more entertaining. The cast as a whole did a fantastic job at portraying realistic characters in such a bizarre dream world.

Once again, whether or not Inception is a good or bad movie is up to you. If you just want to zone out and stare at a screen, I suggest you stay away. But if you want an intelligent movie, that will make you think for days afterward and spark hour long debates with your friends, Inception is your movie.