Inception
I was pretty impressed with Chris Nolan's new movie - The Dark Knight was a lot to live up to, but he does it here. And despite all the internet bleating about how complicated the movie is, it's really not - I found it straightforward to follow. I won't state much about the storyline, but if you haven't seen the movie I advise you to steer clear of the rest of my post just in case.
The concepts are clever and elaborate, and all have a ring of plausibility: inception, subjective time compression, projections rejecting outsiders, secrets populating symbols of security, sedation preventing waking, dream depths, kicks, the avoidance of real locations, the use of a non-target's dream, and totems. The revelation of Mal's obsession is truly horrifying, and her arguments to Dom very creepy.
The cast is fantastic; Leo is a lot less annoying than I expected (probably because he's older and plays a family man), and Ellen Page does well despite seeming way too young.
The action sequences are innovative and due to the storyline, synchronised. There's a strange sense watching the onion-like layers of crashes and explosions, yet the unreality didn't give me the same sense of pointlessness I felt when watching The Matrix. There are true elements of dread when Ellen Page punches the basement button in the lift, and when Leo repeatedly sees his children.
The storyline had lots of unexpected developments, with the environment turning antagonistic, the character most important to Dom being shot early on, and the operations at each level failing and having to be improvised with some very clever new plans.
The one thing I didn't like about the movie was its ending; I thought that it was too far towards the negative outcome and wasn't ambiguous enough. In the airport I was on the edge of my seat fearing that everyone would stare, and the very slight ambivalence in the spin didn't satisfy me. I see the negative interpretation as an audience tease rather than a proper ending, especially after the dramatic self-discovery in Limbo.
I'm looking forward to Nolan's next movie, and hope that there are more films with this degree of intellectual content.
The concepts are clever and elaborate, and all have a ring of plausibility: inception, subjective time compression, projections rejecting outsiders, secrets populating symbols of security, sedation preventing waking, dream depths, kicks, the avoidance of real locations, the use of a non-target's dream, and totems. The revelation of Mal's obsession is truly horrifying, and her arguments to Dom very creepy.
The cast is fantastic; Leo is a lot less annoying than I expected (probably because he's older and plays a family man), and Ellen Page does well despite seeming way too young.
The action sequences are innovative and due to the storyline, synchronised. There's a strange sense watching the onion-like layers of crashes and explosions, yet the unreality didn't give me the same sense of pointlessness I felt when watching The Matrix. There are true elements of dread when Ellen Page punches the basement button in the lift, and when Leo repeatedly sees his children.
The storyline had lots of unexpected developments, with the environment turning antagonistic, the character most important to Dom being shot early on, and the operations at each level failing and having to be improvised with some very clever new plans.
The one thing I didn't like about the movie was its ending; I thought that it was too far towards the negative outcome and wasn't ambiguous enough. In the airport I was on the edge of my seat fearing that everyone would stare, and the very slight ambivalence in the spin didn't satisfy me. I see the negative interpretation as an audience tease rather than a proper ending, especially after the dramatic self-discovery in Limbo.
I'm looking forward to Nolan's next movie, and hope that there are more films with this degree of intellectual content.