Inception Review

The moment “Inception” cut to black right after its much-debated final shot, I felt like turning to the people I was with and channeling John Locke after he’s done watching the first orientation film on “Lost.”

“We’re gonna need to watch that again.”

It wasn’t even that I needed to watch “Inception” again because I didn’t understand what the hell was going on. (Although anyone who tells you they understood/appreciated EVERY single layer of writer-director Christopher Nolan’s most ambitious work to date after just one viewing is either lying or drunk. Or both.)

It’s more that I WANTED to experience “Inception” again so that I could attempt to further understand/appreciate everything I’d just seen.

Ugh. I’m afraid I’m making this movie sound more complicated than it really is.

It’d be a crime to reveal too much about this movie to people who haven’t seen it, so I’ll try to keep it simple. “Inception” is set in a world where it is possible for someone to enter the human mind and gain access to a person’s secrets through their dreams.

Leonardo DiCaprio stars as Dom Cobb, the leader of a team of highly-skilled thieves. Cobb is estranged from his family, but gets a chance to go home again when he’s offered the good ‘ol high-risk, virtually-impossible “last job. “

That right there is one level of Nolan’s genius. He takes the exceedingly heady concepts of dreamscapes, sub-consciousness and “what is real?” and presents them through a simple structure that is strikingly similar to a heist movie like “Ocean’s Eleven.” (The gang leader recruits his team, we get a superficial look at the complex plan, and the final act is the carrying out of said plan.)

It takes a little while to get there though. Much of the early portions of “Inception” are disorienting and confusing. Two things here: 1.) Maybe I was just disoriented and confused because I’m not very smart. 2.) I suspect Nolan did this on purpose to recreate the unreal, puzzling nature of dreams. Fortunately, Nolan takes care of his audience by never raising a question/mystery/plot point that isn’t answered or addressed later on (even if you have to do a little bit of the work yourself).

Did I get to the part where “Inception” is one of the most visually-striking films I’ve ever seen? Nolan, cinematographer Wally Pfister and the rest of the crew create one of those beautiful retro-futuristic worlds (like in “Gattaca”) which suggest that this story could be taking place at any time. More importantly, the excellent special effects are used the way special effects should ALWAYS be used. They’re there to supplant and complement the characters and the story, instead of doing all the heavy lifting.

Nolan also gets a big-time assist from a sturdy cast.

This may not be DiCaprio’s best work, but he delivers a strong performance in a challenging role that requires him to exude authority and anguish, often at the same time. I think we’re supposed to be rooting for Dom to succeed so that he could get home, but the character is kept at such an arm’s length that I ended up rooting for him to succeed just to see if what he was trying to do was possible.

Fortunately, the movie features plenty of lively supporting performances to keep things interesting. Joseph Gordon-Levitt (rapidly becoming one of my favorite actors) is rock solid as Arthur, even if I don’t really know what his job actually is other than being Dom’s right hand man. Gordon-Levitt also got to star in the coolest action sequence of the year, an anti-gravity fight inside a rotating hallway. (Yeah, you read that right.)

Tom Hardy delivers most of the laughs (and most of the “Hey, this is supposed to be fun”) as Eames, the team’s “forger.” I also thought Cillian Murphy (as the team’s rich boy target) helped ground the movie’s heist-heavy third act with a terrific, restrained performance.

As much as I gush about Christopher Nolan, he’s not perfect. As was the case with “Batman Begins”/ “The Dark Knight”, Nolan’s weakness is that he’s simply not able to create strong, fully-formed female characters.

That weakness is much less glaring in “Inception”, but I give most of the credit to Oscar winner Marion Cotillard’s emotional performance as Mal, the movie’s complex antagonist. Ellen Page, unfortunately, fares much worse. As Ariadne, the new architect that Dom recruits for his team, Page’s character exists for no reason other than to serve as a stand-in for the audience. When Dom is explaining how the dreamscapes work to Ariadne, he’s really explaining it to us. When Ariadne is yelling at Dom to overcome his issues, she’s really voicing what the audience is feeling. She’s not a person – she’s a narrative device.

I’d also love to tell you something about Ken Watanabe’s performance as the team’s benefactor, but I only understood about 25% of what he said. (Sorry, Ken – I still loved you in “The Last Samurai.”)

Still, the positives far outweigh the negatives.

The summer movie season is usually a time for mindless fun. (Nothing wrong with that, by the way.) Still, with all its strong performance and visual razzle-dazzle, the most exciting thing about “Inception” is that I immediately wanted to watch it again as soon as it was over because it had jumpstarted my brain.

Inception…A-