Inception

Everybody loves a good "thinking movie." From the reality-bending conclusions of movies such as Shyamalan's "Sixth Sense" or  Scorsese's "Shutter Island" to the psychological torture of Nolan's "The Dark Knight" or Kubric's acclaimed classic "A Clockwork Orange," to the familiarly bent reality of Fincher's "Fight Club"--people love to think at the movies. More than to think, people love to understand something new after a movie. While mindless films such as Transformers or Avatar grab sizable portions of the box office, who can ignore the legacy of what is generally agreed to be a "good" movie; a movie that lingers in the viewers mind, that can be reflected on and admired long after leaving the theater. What people love is ingenuity. "Inception" literally means "a beginning" or "the start of a new idea", and a new idea is what it delivers. Without question, Nolan has lived up to his golden reputation once again.

In fact, this is a movie in which I found very few flaws. Nolan directs enchantingly and magnificently, if not in the "high-art" style many similarly acclaimed movies share. DiCaprio delivered one of his better performances, and Cillian Murphy (Batman Begins, Dark Knight, Peacock) was very nearly flawless in his role. The one real problem I had with the acting was the relationship between Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Eames (Tom Hardy.) While Nolan obviously tried to create a sort of teasing witty rivalry between the two, it wasn't pushed enough to become secure. The result was a half-hearted chemistry that was neither convincing, or added to the movie.

Now for the story...  It was an enchanting and clever story, but was slightly flawed. The genius of this movie lies in the fact that it pleases the audience by showing them something new and makes them think they understand it, while at the same time, it leaves enough open-ended and unanswered questions to leave them wanting to come back and experience it again. It's flaw lied in the fact that there were so many unanswered questions. For instance, the very first scene in the movie showed Cobb (DiCaprio) washed up on a beach. He's taken to the home of a very old man, where he proceeds to try to steal a secret from a younger man's safe. At the end of the movie, he goes back to the exact same scenario, is taken to the house of the very same old man, but this time, the old man IS the younger man, grown up. so who's the old man the first time? It's the questions like these that brings the audience back to see this film again and again, but no matter how many times they see it, the question will never be answered. But even though I have pointed it out as a "flaw," perhaps it is really a clever device... after all, it DOES accomplish great things for the movie.

Visually, this movie was striking, but not quite all it could have been. The slow-motion bits were nice, but could have undoubtedly been better. Without giving too much away, by the climax of the film, there were 4 or 5 levels of reality, each one of which were relatively 20 times slower than the level before it. so a minute in one level could be as long as over 100 years in another level. this leads to some wonderful level-jumping slow-motion shots, but were never pushed as far as they could have been, never going more than 2 levels in either direction. Additionally, the visual spectacle of the film wasn't exercised enough. While it was a wonderful story with occasional striking imagery, it was never as visually spectacular as it could have been.

As I've mentioned above, the story was really the strong point of the film. However, the dialogue left much to be wanted. Nolan certainly wouldn't have hurt anything to have brought someone else in to polish the screenplay, maybe insert some clever lines, and add a bit of charisma to the characters. It's the dialogue that makes movies like Richie's "Sherlock Holmes" tick, and Inception could have greatly benefited from it.

But after all, this is all nitpicking. On the whole, this was a highly-entertaining, intellectually provocative, visually mesmerizing (if not striking), film. While it may not be life-shattering or world-changing, it is easily one of the best films of the year, very nearly living up to it's "perfect movie" reputation. I would give it a 9.5/10, and plan on seeing it again when it is released on DVD