Inception

Review by Loc

The trailers looked fantastic. The early words were encouraging. The lack of other options this summer made it a welcome entrant. Yes, Inception is positioned to be the great summer flick of 2010, joining its Dark Knight brethren as Christopher Nolan’s badass brigade of mid-July awesomeness. With mystery shrouding its actual story, the early glimpses and fleeting whispers have only helped build the anticipation for this movie. Quick hit: and it’s merely OK.

As a whole, Inception is clearly one of the quality pictures for this summer. Along with Toy Story 3, Inception stands above the rest of the droning, formulaic mass of summer blah that you’ve had to face this year. However, also like Toy Story 3, solid is as far as this film gets. Phrases like visually mindblowing, intelligent and complex, and stunning in execution, are all hyperbole, which is unfortunate.

Simply put, Inception is about…minor spoilers ahead…stealing ideas through dreams. Seems that in a world very much like our own, and possibly our very own, science and the military have developed a method to enter an individual’s dream and snoop around like a super spy agent…end spoilers. Again, in the realm of unfortunate, Nolan doesn’t spend much time delving into the science of this feat. Rather, the film focuses wholly on a mission led by Leonardo DiCaprio. With his team of super specialists, Leo attempts a highly complex version of the stated-above-phenomenon, and we get to see Mission Impossible with Leo, Joseph Gordin-Levitt, Ellen Page, and others.

Some might argue that this is a good thing, focus on the action, focus on moving the plot forward rather than scientific minutiae. However, that’s not good enough for a sci-fi thriller that explores a relatively fresh concept. Spending time on how this is possible could have provided the underlying mission with more gravity and substance. Understanding the stakes without inferring them from one-off sentences would have given those super-slo-mo shots more reason for us to care. In the end, it’s a visually trippy version of James Bond meets GI Joe. Which shows you how a good GI Joe film could look in the future…however, that doesn’t address the issue of what Inception should be now.

Then the story itself, being the centerpiece in lieu of the science, becomes a solid anchor all involved. And yet, it’s a relatively flimsy story, too. Yes, there is a mission, yes , there are complications at every turn from building the team to finishing the goal. But really, if you want to stick Ethan Hunt in a dream-catcher sequence, you can probably mash-up Mission Impossible and Minority Report, and get something similar to Inception, as far as execution goes. Sure, its serviceable, but Inception does not exceed that bar at any time.

What about the amazing visuals? Those are pretty sweet actually. Did you see that scene where the city looks like it runs into a 90 degree wall? What about the scene with people floating around a long hallway? And how about the city crumbling on the shoreline? Yeah, you saw those in the trailer? Oh, because those are all the cool scenes in the movie, too. There’s nothing beyond those snippets. And that sucks, because the potential to more visually amazing things never gets realized. The biggest thing that popped in my head was during the hallway scene where folks are shifting and defying gravity. I wondered whether they were using cables or the zero-gravity 747 known as the Vomit Comet. I think for the big floaty scenes, definitely Vomit Comet. Which illustrates a big problem – why am I thinking about how they executed a visual effect rather than be fully engrossed in the crazy action?

Because the crazy action is mildly loco. It’s not full-blown madness, it’s just well filmed, well executed fights on a rotating set or a float in the Vomit Comet or a simple CGI projection. All of these scenes could have been more, even if just for the concept at hand. However, the biggest selling point doesn’t get sold out, you don’t get the overwhelming, reality-bending architecture or design work. You get what you saw in the trailers, and that’s disappointing.

Overall, Inception is a solid and entertaining film. However, it never excels beyond serviceable in any facet. Not in the story, not in the science, not in the characters, not in the special effects. In essence, Inception is the solid B student for an audience expecting the valedictorian A+ student who also starred as the athletic jock/head cheerleader while spending time volunteering at the soup kitchen. Yes, those are some lofty expectations, but Inception was supposed to deliver. It just never tries to do more than it does. Out of experiencing 50 years in a dream, Inception wakes up after 35. It’s solid, but not spectacular.

Rated: 7/10