I overheard a conversation between two teenage girls today about Inception that went something like this:
Yeah, like, I haven't seen the movie yet, but I heard it was, like, really weird, but really good. It's like about these guys that can, like, go into your dreams. And they can tell you to give you a million dollars in your dream, and like, I guess you give them a million dollars in real life. And, like, you can do anything in these dreams. Like, jet skis driving on streets, and stuff. I don't know. It's kind of hard to explain. It's weird and stuff. I really want to see it.
Well, I'm not sure she quite got the plot right (or really much of anything), but I will agree that it was really good. Oddly though, the film wasn't really that weird, and that's surprisingly a good thing.
Dominic Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a new kind of intellectual property thief. With his team, he steals ideas, although not in the conventional way. Instead of breaking into a physical vault, they utilize a method of shared dreaming to enter the dreams of their mark and literally steal an idea locked in the subconscious safe of their minds. A heist of Saito (Ken Watanabe), a Japanese energy tycoon, is unsuccessful, but turns into an offer for Cobb and his gang that is just too good to pass up. Instead of a stealing ideas, they are tasked to plant one in the mind of Robert Fischer, Jr. (Cillian Murphy), the heir to a massive energy company that threatens to monopolize the entire global market if not broken up.
Part of what makes this film so entertaining is the whole heist aspect of the plot with a seemingly impossible item to steal (or in the case of Inception, to plant), an intricate plan to pull of the job, and a hand-picked team with each member having unique skills to contribute. Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and Eames (Tom Hardy) are the point men of sorts for Cobb's team, Yusuf (Dileep Rao) is the science guy in charge of keeping them in their dream state, and Saito is the money man bank rolling the whole endeavor. Ariadne (Ellen Page) is a newcomer to this world who acts as an "architect" of dreamscapes for the team, and also provides the rookie questions that allows the movie to explain to the audience what the rules are in the dream world. As in any good heist movie, the method and plan is outlined up front and then put into play for us to watch and enjoy.
Now this being a dream movie, you'd expect things to get complicated. In some ways, it does, but unlike most films I recall delving into dreams, Christopher Nolan doesn't make this film overly complex or abstract. In the film, Cobb tests Ariadne during her recruitment to make up a maze on paper in two minutes that he can solve in one. Like this, Nolan creates a maze of sorts with dreams occurring within dreams, but keeps things linear enough that we can follow him on the journey, and with careful attention, not get lost. Questions arise, but are answerable with the rules and information laid out. Unlike other movies delving into dreams or other types of alternate states (e.g. The Matrix), Nolan doesn't get lost in obtuse philosophical ideas about conciousness and self-awareness to the point of running the movie in circles. And I think this is the beauty of Inception. It's a solvable puzzle, but leaves just enough ambiguity at the end to keep it interesting.
The musical orchestration by Hans Zimmer is quite good and complements the mood to the movie. I'm glad this didn't feel like an afterthought compared to most movie soundtracks lately. My only complaint is that the music may have been utilized too much. Hardly a second goes by that the music isn't playing in the background. Maybe it's just me, but it got a bit distracting when I became aware of it (almost like watching a Michael Bay movie and realizing how many damn shots the guy uses per scene). Still, after reading this post on the New York Times ArtsBeats blog, I was even more appreciative of the thought that went into composing the music for this film.
Every actor utilized in the film fits with their character. Suprisingly, Ellen Page may be the weakest link in the cast, but is probably related more to the fact that she still looks like a 13 year girl rather than a college-aged whiz kid. And this is, I think, the third movie in a row with Leonardo DiCaprio I've rated up in the Dangerously Cheesy level. The guy can do no wrong it seems, and Inception has convincingly erased any memory of him I had in Titanic.
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