Inception
Imagine if someone was somehow able to enter your dreams and could manipulate them in order to extract personal information from your subconcious and there you have the basic premise of Inception. The movie has drawn a lot of comparisons with The Matrix and while the actual plot and the way Inception utilises the manipulation of the human mind are quite different, there are still a lot of definite similiarities. However, the special effects used in Inception makes The Matrix look like the original Clash of the Titans.
Leonardo DiCaprio plays Dom Cobb who, along with a select team, is an expert in extracting information from people by entering their dreams. At the start of the movie we see him botch a job inside the mind of power company boss Saito (played Ken Watanabe). We then find out that the whole thing was actually what Saito calls an 'audition' in order to see if Cobb is capable of pulling off a much bigger job involving placing an idea into the mind of future rival company boss Robert Fischer Jr.'s (Cillian Murphy) subconcious instead of stealing one.
DiCaprio's acting is as solid as ever and he pulled off his role well. My only gripe is that his character has a sub-story involving him having difficulty coping with memories of his wife and becoming increasingly confused between his memories and reality. With any other actor you wouldn't give it a second thought but after seeing Shutter Island just a few weeks ago I was left with an enormous sense of deja vu.
Like any good heist movie the supporting cast are just as important as the lead and I felt it was a bit hit and miss. Joseph Gordon-Levitt did well but Tom Hardy easily steals the show as the eccentric Eames. On the other hand I found Ellen Page to be under-whelming as Ariadne who is built up to play a vital role in Cobb's team but then ends up actually doing very little. Likewise Michael Cane plays a very brief part and while it's obvious that Christopher Nolan likes to use actors he's worked with before (Cane, Watanabe and Murphy were all in Batman Begins), Cane seems to only be there to add some more weight to the cast list.
The movie has a lot of ground to cover and with just two and a half hours to do it in some sacrifices in the pacing are clearly made. As Cobb assembles his team we're given a little insight into each members speciality although we only get to see them utilising these on one or two occasions and we're not given any backstory on anyone else other than the main character. We find out where Cobb learned to enter people's dreams but we're not told much else about it. We also see the technology involved but it's never explained how this actually works.
As far as the basic concept goes we can see that the main characters are all aware of the possibility of accessing the dreams of another but we're never given any idea of how widespread this knowledge actually is as a whole. The movie seems to struggle to fully explore everything it tries to cram in and as such you're only ever given the bare minimum amount of information you need in order to set the scene and advance the plot. With this in mind you can't help wonder if it would have been better to break it up into two or three parts. This would allow the opportunity to fully explore everything it has to offer rather than simply rushing through it although, while Inception isn't as well paced as The Matrix you can understand why Nolan might have been wary of splitting it up considering how badly the sequels turned out.
The special effects all throughout are impressive and even something as ambitious as folding an entire street on top of itself is made to look believable. It's not all huge set pieces though. There are times when smaller effects are also used to pull off something as simple as manipulating a staircase into a paradox in order to defeat an enemy. For me, the way the characters deliberately defy the laws of physics while inside someone's subconscious are by far the most enjoyable moments and regardless of what you think of the plot, the acting or anything else about Inception you'll regret not seeing it on the big screen for those moments alone.
Leonardo DiCaprio plays Dom Cobb who, along with a select team, is an expert in extracting information from people by entering their dreams. At the start of the movie we see him botch a job inside the mind of power company boss Saito (played Ken Watanabe). We then find out that the whole thing was actually what Saito calls an 'audition' in order to see if Cobb is capable of pulling off a much bigger job involving placing an idea into the mind of future rival company boss Robert Fischer Jr.'s (Cillian Murphy) subconcious instead of stealing one.
DiCaprio's acting is as solid as ever and he pulled off his role well. My only gripe is that his character has a sub-story involving him having difficulty coping with memories of his wife and becoming increasingly confused between his memories and reality. With any other actor you wouldn't give it a second thought but after seeing Shutter Island just a few weeks ago I was left with an enormous sense of deja vu.
Like any good heist movie the supporting cast are just as important as the lead and I felt it was a bit hit and miss. Joseph Gordon-Levitt did well but Tom Hardy easily steals the show as the eccentric Eames. On the other hand I found Ellen Page to be under-whelming as Ariadne who is built up to play a vital role in Cobb's team but then ends up actually doing very little. Likewise Michael Cane plays a very brief part and while it's obvious that Christopher Nolan likes to use actors he's worked with before (Cane, Watanabe and Murphy were all in Batman Begins), Cane seems to only be there to add some more weight to the cast list.
The movie has a lot of ground to cover and with just two and a half hours to do it in some sacrifices in the pacing are clearly made. As Cobb assembles his team we're given a little insight into each members speciality although we only get to see them utilising these on one or two occasions and we're not given any backstory on anyone else other than the main character. We find out where Cobb learned to enter people's dreams but we're not told much else about it. We also see the technology involved but it's never explained how this actually works.
As far as the basic concept goes we can see that the main characters are all aware of the possibility of accessing the dreams of another but we're never given any idea of how widespread this knowledge actually is as a whole. The movie seems to struggle to fully explore everything it tries to cram in and as such you're only ever given the bare minimum amount of information you need in order to set the scene and advance the plot. With this in mind you can't help wonder if it would have been better to break it up into two or three parts. This would allow the opportunity to fully explore everything it has to offer rather than simply rushing through it although, while Inception isn't as well paced as The Matrix you can understand why Nolan might have been wary of splitting it up considering how badly the sequels turned out.
The special effects all throughout are impressive and even something as ambitious as folding an entire street on top of itself is made to look believable. It's not all huge set pieces though. There are times when smaller effects are also used to pull off something as simple as manipulating a staircase into a paradox in order to defeat an enemy. For me, the way the characters deliberately defy the laws of physics while inside someone's subconscious are by far the most enjoyable moments and regardless of what you think of the plot, the acting or anything else about Inception you'll regret not seeing it on the big screen for those moments alone.