Sunday, November 29, 2015

Review: Inception (2010)


Time to make good on that sweet, sweet Dark Knight money and spend studio equity on the riskiest of all ventures: a smart action film. Something genuinely exciting, thought-provoking, and emotionally affecting. Something engaging. Something visually stunning and mentally stimulating. In short, something rare.

It could be the film that Christopher Nolan has been building towards all along. All of his usual tools are there -- objects, ticking clocks, The Plague on Thebes is You -- now with a budget large enough to fold cities and rotate hallways. The usual mistakes are there too, as though he refuses to learn from them. Motivations are stated, not shown, and as airtight as the mechanics behind the heist, the excuse for it is flimsy if you look at it too long. There are times Inception could benefit from slowing down (some "Quiet Time" to Super Bunnyhop) and others where we straight-up pause the momentum of the heist to get through some vital information about the dead wife, information we could have learned in that memory elevator ride. And at one point was the story going to be told out of order? Is that brief flash-forward in the opening from a previous draft? Jettisoning a puzzle box in favor of a triple-layered action scene is probably best.

Movie's great, I don't care what Rick & Morty says.

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