How ‘Inception’ Didn’t Make Me Feel Stupid

By Dino-Ray | Friday, July 16, 2010 | 7 Comments

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How Inception Didnt Make Me Feel Stupid Movies like Donnie Darko, Primer and even The Matrix trilogy have challenged my intellect (or lack thereof). Inception falls into that category of mind-bending cinema that may or may not make a “WTF” hover above your head.

Lucky for me, I only felt kind of stupid after watching this movie.

As the auteur of indie darling, Memento and the reinvigorated noir-ish Batman franchise, Inception director and writer Christopher Nolan may have created one of the most amazing movies of the summer – nay – the year.

Besides having a really cool cast, the story has so many layers that, if placed in the hands of any other director, may have been a big ol’ clusterf*ck – but Nolan handles it effortlessly.

But what hell is it about? Well, I’m glad you asked.

It’s about dreams and a duo of dudes (who appear to be thieves) who enter them to “extract” crucial information from the dreams of a dreamer. Makes sense, right? That duo consists of Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his partner in crime Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). After finding out about their shady business, big daddy tycoon Saito (our Asian homeboy Ken Watanabe) asks the dreamy bosom buddies to perform inception on Robert Fischer, Jr. (Cillian Murphy), the heir to a business that poses a threat to Saito’s company.

But what the hell is inception? Well, I’m glad you asked.

Inception is the exact opposite of extraction. Instead of taking something out of a dream, they are implanting something into a dream.

There is a lot on the line with this job so they make a few additions to the dream team. Adriadne (Ellen Page) hops on board as the resident “architect” (she builds the dream) and Eames (Tom Hardy), the “forger” who can transform himself into anyone when in a subject’s dream. Then there’s Yusuf (Dileep Rao), the man who makes the potions and such to put people in a dreamlike state.

Are you dorked out yet? If not, read on.

If Cobb finishes this final job successfully, he will be able to go home and visit his kids who he hasn’t seen in forever. Then there’s the matter of his late wife, Mal (the ravishing Marion Cotillard) who happens to show up during his “dream” jobs to screw things up. She’s kind of like Freddy Krueger, but instead of knived fingers, she’s just an all-around cruel bitch who wants to make his life a living hell – but that’s just a whole different story.

This movie would be great to watch under the influence of mind altering drugs, but it’s okay to watch sober as well – but you have to pay close attention because if you blink, you might miss something. I actually held my water (my pee) and sat through all 150 minutes just so I wouldn’t miss anything. I may have increased my risk for a UTI, but it was worth it.

How Inception Didnt Make Me Feel Stupid Inception provides a captivating balance of drama, science fiction, and action that will blow your mindhole. I don’t know where to begin in explaining the fascination of this movie. Should I start with the amazing writing? Or maybe I should talk about Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s brilliant “Dancing on the Ceiling” fight scene. Or maybe I should just focus on Leo’s greatness as the emotional core of the movie. What about Page’s ability to make me think she can be someone other than snarky pregnant teen? Or the dry humor of Tom Hardy? Or perhaps the slyness of Ken Watanabe? Or maybe I should just focus on the great scene where Leo and Joe wear leather jackets a la Starsky and Hutch.

The movie is in appreciative individual pieces, but when put together it’s a monolithic piece of work that is thought-provoking like a cool indie film, action-packed like a summer blockbuster and dramatic like an epic production.

I may not be smart enough to fully explain the girth of this movie. I could try, but I am sure there are a bunch of douchebags who will “claim” to know the underlying meanings of the layered plotlines that you can talk to for some pretentious explanations.

The definition of a good movie is one that burrows itself in your brain and infects it with intriguing questions for days on end (I’ve been thinking about it since I screened it on Monday). I had to really concentrate to follow the story and I’m sure it will require multiple viewings when it comes out on DVD. Essentially, it’s a brainteaser. I understood what was going on, but felt exhausted afterward – like I just took some sort of standardized test – a test I wouldn’t mind taking again.

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http://hellomoye.com/ moye

I can’t decide what’s better: the ending of this film or listening to people who didn’t understand it as they walked out of the movie theater.
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http://www.facebook.com/lscarrozzi Louis Stephen Carrozzi

LOL! I hear ya. Here is a post I put up today:

Normally when a movie spawns so many different interpretations of its content, it actually means that the director was incoherent, the movie was poorly executed, some studio executive cut out key scenes that were critical to the film to meet an arbitrary “run time”, or the story just plain sucked in the first place. I am happy to say that I don’t think ‘Inception’ suffers from any of that. In fact I would dare say that the more you actually “get” this film, the more interpretations there are of the actual story, and that this was totally intentional on the part of Nolan and that’s why I say this movie is absolutely AMAZING. It is also amazing to me how many people, even professional movie reviewers, were simply unable to peel back even the first layer of this movie when Nolan is throwing clues at you in almost every scene of the film! A spinning top? A loaded dice? A chess piece? A mobius staircase? Come on! Most reviewers out there were trapped on level 1 with the whole mental espionage plot and mental bank heist being their central focus while seemingly ignoring the other 50% of the movie! If you stop there, and think that this is all this movie is about, then it’s not a really good movie, is it? The characters are flat, there is little character development, yada yada yada, and so people come away thinking the movie wasn’t that great. Oh, for shame! No wonder you thought it wasn’t a good movie. You were snowed from the word go and you just flat out ignored everything else in the movie. Nolan pulled the wool over your eyes. That’s OK. Inception is a really mental movie, so, for those of you who really didn’t get it, I’ll give you some clues, and I want you to go back and see it again in light of what I am going to say. For those of you who HAVE NOT see ‘Inception’ CLOSE YOUR WEB BROWSER NOW. There will be ’spoilers’, but not really, because even if I did tell you what is really going on, we can debate the actual interpretation of that until the end of time and still not arrive at the same conclusion. First off, the mental bank heist does not take place on dream levels 1,2,3 and 4. It actually takes places on dream levels 2,3,4 and 5 with level 1 being the “reality” that we think that Cobb is living in with the other members of the dream hack team. If you get that, you’re 50% of the way “there”. Second, pay especially close attention to the age of Saito in the table meeting with Cobb in light of the dream state rules that Nolan is doling out. Pay especially close attention to what goes on between Cobb and Saito and Cobb and Cobb’s wife Mal. Also note that when Cobb washes up on the beach and gets taken to Saito that he is actually on level 5 of the dream “heist” where Cobb and his team are trying to crack into the mark’s mind, and where he and his wife created a vast landscape, and where Cobb is causing the rest of the team to risk falling into limbo. Also pay attention to the rules of “limbo” and then define what Nolan is actually talking about when he says that Cobb is trying to get back home. If all that doesn’t yank the blinders off you and show you what “Inception” is really all about, then, well, maybe you’ll just have to sit out there continuing to think that it was just an “OK” film. ‘Inception’ is an absolutely incredible film and I feel lucky to live in the year 2010 to be able to see it. And even though I think I got 90% of it, I still have to go back and see it a second time to try and make sense of the other 10%. ‘Nuff said.
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Tony Li

I don’t know how stupid you have to be to not understand that movie, I suggest people who were frustrated by the “complexity” of inception go see “the Tree of Life”, ( but even that movie isn’t hard to understand it just has a non linear storyline). What people need to understand is filmmakers aren’t aiming to make movies hard to understand in fact it’s the exact opposite the purpose of film making is to express yourself, to be understood, it’s just that sometimes the things that need to be expressed are complicated, but the expression should be as direct as the idea needing expression dictates.

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