I think it's incredibly rude and condescending to say that this movie inspires no discussion or achieves none of the things it tries to do, when very clearly so many people are reacting to it by engaging in discussion and praising it's achievements. Aside from a handful of early reviews I don't think anyone's claiming it's a work of cinematic genius; people are just pleased to see a movie that they really enjoy on several levels and think is very good. If you don't like the movie, that's absolutely fine, but it doesn't make people who do enjoy it morons, which seems to be the overriding tone here in a lot of posts.
Things I liked about Inception include...
The lack of explanation of the dream device - too many sci-fi films have suffered by trying to explain how things work unnecessarily, by taking tise out of the equation Inception avoids that.
The interaction between JGL and Tom Hardy. Several laughs out of that, really enjoyed watching both of them all the way through.
The rolling-corridor fight scene - this doubly impresses me now that I know they built a corridor that revolved through 360 degrees on giant hydraulic platforms in order to do it. Honestly one of the most gorgeous action scenes I've seen in a long time; I also love that it's played out in arch a bland brown environment, not at all showy.
The general lack of showiness in terms of colour palette was very welcome, actually, but i guess is a Nolan trait at this point. There were many moments I thought were beautiful or impressive but I never felt whacked over the head with them.
The zero gravity bit; must find out how this was done.
The shared dream logic and dream design resonated very much with me, especially the limbo level of Di Caprio and Cotillard's subconscious romance; the receding rows of buildings, the familiar houses behind fences and moved into strange new positions, all seemed like experiences from my own dreams. I tend to fly, or be being chased, or be in familiar but not quite right situations in my own dreams, rather than have outrageous fantastical stuff happen. This captured the dream state for me as well as anything else, and is up with Waking Life as far as that goes (much as I love Waking Life, a lot of it does not remind me of my own dreams, but feels much more like a cinematic representation of what we think of dreams of being, at least visually; narrative or lack thereof is perhaps closer to real dreaming, but the it's a film just about dreaming as opposed tom plot within a shared dream).
The questions it has raised; having seen it twice now and read much discussion and prose, I've had many thoughts myself and come across even more; who is being incepted, Fischer or Cobb? How much of the film is a dream? Are all the 'rules' actually rules, or are some of them just misdirects from Cobb's subconscious? The idea of the film being about Nolan and how he makes films himself is another interesting idea that I don't think I'd have come to myself, even though my primary thought at the end of the film was about how aware the film is of it's own status as a film. There are plausible clues for every interpretation, which all add up to it being a smart film, in my mind.
The romance also resonated with me - the line about wanting to live in a house but also loving "these kinds of buildings", that shared taste and ideals, the idea of building worlds together, growing old in dreams, the fear of not remembering that process, all struck me much harder on second viewing, possibly because on first viewing I was so tied up with following the narrative and unravelling what was real.
I could name a dozen other little things regarding set design, or lines of dialogue, or potential plot queries, but I shan't.
Things I don't like about Inception...
Ellen Paige's lack of hips and bad wardrobe, and I'm not entirely convinced by her as an actress either. But she wasn't annoying, just... not the best choice, possibly. Or not to my tastes.
The snow fight is too long, and almost incongruous, plus a little confusing. But it IS a dream after all, so I'll let it off. The ziggurat thing is a hospital, or so Paige described it as, but it does just look like a Bond villain bunker.
The movie itself is probably too long by 20-30 minutes; on second viewing we could maybe have done with a little less exposition and with most of the action sequences being trimmed, but I didn't think this on first viewing.
I don't think Nolan is great at big dramatic action climaxes, though I think he is very good with dénouements. The ferries in TDK and the snow fight in this both go on a touch too long, and see, anti-climactic compared to smaller, better observed, more genuinely dramatic or exciting moments earlier in each film.
Too loud, also a problem with TDK. While I applaud Nolan's use of full dynamic range, explosions, big doomy moments of score, gunfights, car crashes, etc, are all too loud. It's exciting in the cinema first time if their system can handle it, but it's a step too far for my tastes.
Di Caprio's big head. I like him more and more as an actor but he does have such an awfully big head.
― Captain Ostensible (Scik Mouthy), Tuesday, 20 July 2010 20:41 (fifteen years ago)