Inception
It’s easy to say that our current reality is so awful on the surface that maybe the world of our dreams is the more preferable climate, while others might argue that to be self-aware and firmly grounded in the real world is the place to be. Thus is the argument raised by Christopher Nolan’s 2010 film that caused pretty much a phenomenon on the level of The Matrix and other sci-fi classics, an incredibly imaginative effort that nonetheless fails to engage the viewer on certain emotional levels. Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Cobb, an apparent dream specialist (though the extent and origin of his training is one of many unanswered questions) who currently freelances as a sort of high-level espionage artist where he is paid to go into people’s heads and extract important information for usually shady purposes. After having one such job go awry, the intended mark (Ken Watanabe) approaches him with a much more complex scheme: To implement an “inception”, or rather, to actually plant an idea inside a person’s head as opposed to extracting it, so that the end result will benefit his corporation. DiCaprio agrees, on the condition that his fugitive status will be revoked and his ability to go home to the U.S. will be restored, and assembles his team for what appears to be your usual heist film, with a twist. They include Joseph-Gordon Levitt as his right hand man, Tom Hardy as a so-called forger with the ability to impersonate others within a dream, Dileep Rao as the chemist who will design the perfect sedative concoction for the enterprise, and best of all Ellen Page (still keeping her profile high in an A-list film) as the Architect of the scheme whose job it is to design all the layouts for the dream world for the main characters to move around in (though how exactly her designs are brought to life in dreams is yet another unanswered question). The monkey wrench to the whole deal lies in the presence of DiCaprio’s dead wife (Marion Cotillard) who continues to live in his subconscious and has a knack for causing things to always go awry. Although, when we learn of the circumstances of his wife’s death in the real world and what triggered it (they had spent years together in a dream world of their creating despite having children together in reality and she was never able to adjust after they woke up), yet another unanswered question is raised about the DiCaprio character’s motivation after the fact as to why he and his beloved chose to spend so little time simply being awake with the only possible conclusion being pure selfishness. Regardless, the acting is uniformly all good from the previously mentioned cast in addition to Cillian Murphy as the target of the plot, Tom Berenger as his godfather who must be mimicked in order to pull it off, and Michael Caine as DiCaprio’s father in law (and apparent mentor). Whilst the film does contain some amazing CGI created visuals, it lacks the cognitive beauty of the best work of David Lynch (who made a whole career of directing dream-like films), mostly because while Lynch never made it clear what in his films were dreams and what was real, Nolan takes great pains to indicate to the viewer just exactly when the characters are either “in or out”, save for the (somewhat predictable) ending. Moreso, while much of the premise comes off like a (very) high-tech retelling of Ocean’s Eleven, that very fact disqualifies the viewer from caring too deeply about DiCaprio or the others, though the film does succeed in having a haunting aftereffect that might make some reflect on the semblance of their own reality. That being said, the large number of plot holes, half explained rules, and unanswered questions might make the possibility of expanding on its ideas into a sequel or full franchise a very legitimate option, so as we await the next installment from Nolan in the Batman franchise, that idea could very well be food for thought to create an even better story from this…
8/10