Inception Induces The Exceptional

So yeah, I have to say the trailers caught my eye, and this film has been on my radar ever since.  I decided to spend a couple hours today in the movie theater to check out Christopher Nolan’s new film.  On the intuition that the film would be as good as I thought it would be I was mindful of the ratings, but neglected to read the actual reviews for the sheer fact that there are some reviewers out there that decided to write out the entire plot rather than give a film review. but please don’t worry, read on, I am not going to tell you that much.

So, if there was one aspect of the film that would not draw me to the movie theater it would have to be Leonardo Di Caprio having the lead role.  Leonardo Di Caprio to me is like Tomas Kaberle of the Toronto Maple Leafs.  When he first came onto the scene, he gave everyone the impression of so much promise, and here we are years later, generally satisfied with the job that he’s doing, but still waiting for the promise to kick in.  Since Titanic, it’s been hard to see many of Di Caprio’s movies, and not be able to say that someone else could have easily played many of those roles.  For his role as Cobb in Inception however, I don’t know that I would be entirely so quick to say that.

The premise of the film involves the central character Cobb, who is an exceptional thief, and uses perhaps one of the most unconventional methods of being one.  Rather than casing out a joint for reconnaissance, he decides to scope out another medium instead.  The psyche of the intended that he is planning to rob.  He invades their dreams, and uses their subconscious to find out the information that he needs. He uses the power human beings have to manipulate aspects of the dream to attain this.  The casting of Di Caprio works because the character also has a flawed side to him as well, being a thief that doesn’t know when to say “when” and also having the reputation for being a deadbeat dad to his kids, whom they believe was responsible for the death of their mother.

In order for Cobb to redeem himself he needs to pull of one last heist, but it’s not going to be easy, as who he is trying to rob is extremely powerful, and the only way that Cobb can pull this off is if he invokes inception…the dream within the dream.  To assist him with this he has the help of Ariadne, played by Ellen Page, who aside from having longer hair doesn’t bare much of an appearance change from Juno, however the snarky sarcastic one liners have gone and she embraces this role fully.  She acts as the architect of Cobb’s dreams.

Now everything seems to be set up for Cobb to pull this heist off, but the problem is, there are dark memories from Cobb’s past (his wife) that interfere with the manipulation of some of the dreams…..so there’s the hurdle, when it comes to the story, truly ladies and gents, it’s best if I don’t say more.

What I will say though is that aside from the story being refreshingly inventive, the film itself has deep and rich intensity.  You know those dreams that you have sometimes, where you want to wake up but can’t do it when you want to? Well, the film gives you the feel of being in a dream, but what’s intense about it, is that you don’t have control of this dream, and the unexpected is pretty much the norm, not to mention the fact that it has that “I can’t look away, and can’t control my nerves” feel to it.

In addition to a roaring musical score provided by Hans Zimmer, I will also say that when it comes to editing and cinematography, I won’t be surprised if this film is one of the front runners in either category at next year’s Oscars.  Nolan could very much be riding on the precipice of being a modern day auteur, as he in fact does pay tribute to Orson Welles with a variation of a similar shot that Welles used in Citizen Kane.  No doubt that there were images that needed CGI to bring them to fruition, but Nolan made that more eye catching than obvious.

There haven’t been many films this year that have resonated with me, but this is certainly one of them.  In fact I wouldn’t be bashful in saying that I’d like to have another gander at it.  The movie is an all-out intense ride, that you can’t help but love and be inspired by.  I highly recommend this one folks, hold on to your seats and enjoy the ride.

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~ by sicilianspokenword on July 19, 2010.