In trying to distill a movie down to an essential description, I often think of how I would describe it to my father. He's a smart guy who likes good movies, and he doesn't tolerate a lot of "fluff." He seems to know instinctively when a movie is trying to compensate for a bad script, or bad actors, or a dumb premise. I choose carefully when making the occasional film recommendation to him. In this case, when I tell him that he must seeInception as soon as possible, I will say that it is "an action/adventure film for which you have to keep your brain turned on the entire time." And never once will he mistake its majesty for fluff.
That's a unique description in today's movie market. We've almost become fully hypnotized by the new conventional wisdom that action movies by nature are loud and dumb, and one is meant to put his or her brain on static mode while watching. Big action performers like Transformers,Terminator Salvation and the Fast and Furious series thrive only because they exist in the modern environment of lowered expectations. I must admit that it's happened to me, too. After last night I feel like I've been subdued for several years, eating so much potted meat that I started comparing the qualities of the cans, having completely forgotten what a sirloin tasted like.
Christopher Nolan's Inception is one of the best action/adventure movies in years. The only two films in recent memory that even come close to it areChildren of Men and Nolan's own The Dark Knight. Movies like Avatar,Pirates of the Caribbean and the Star Wars prequels scrape off like barnacles in the wake of a majestic ship such as this. For that reason, it's going to be very difficult to write a review of Inception. It's far easier to complain about bad films or write optimistic reviews of passable films than to do justice to an incontrovertible masterpiece. It is also very important that one sees this film with as little information as possible, so this review will be kept spoiler-free beyond discussing the basic premise.
Inception is basically a heist film in the tradition of Mission: Impossible, Ronin, Sneakers, and Ocean's Eleven. The landscape of the heist is the unconscious mind, and Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and a small team of associates are experts in the art of extracting information from dreams. They find an opportunity to subdue a target, then enter his or her dream world in order to discover some secret on behalf of a paying customer. We get an idea of what Cobb does, but as is often true in these types of films, the case central to Inception's plot is more personal. Just as Danny Ocean was trying to get his wife back and Martin Bishop was determined to outwit an old rival, this isn't just another contract for Cobb-- this is "the big one." Even the mission itself is tweaked-- this time, the objective is to implant an idea rather than to extract one.
How this is accomplished and the complexity of the task is explained and executed with such aplomb in the film's screenplay that, like all the best and most imaginative cinematic works, one never questions the ludicrousness of the concept for a moment. Nolan's lean-and-mean script wastes no time with a misplaced devotion to realism in an inherently fantastical concept. It's all about concept, character and action, in that order. The audience learns exactly what Cobb and company do for a living, then what motivates him as a person. After that, Nolan plunges into the action and there's really no letup until the end. The character of Cobb is the anchor, and he feeds the audience just enough information to establish the rules of the film's reality. Despite being a movie about dreams, it never feels like there are cheats or dei ex machina because the setup is so completely flawless.
Like most heist movies, the protagonist must assemble a team of experts to accomplish the task at hand. Each one has a unique skill set that will prove invaluable during the mission. In the case of Inception, to describe the particular skills of these operatives would reveal too much about the way Cobb's team operates in the dream world, a consistently delightful series of seminars that I won't ruin for you before you see the film yourself. Suffice to say, I've always loved "team assembly" scenes in movies andInception is true to form for the genre. Cobb is already partnered with Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, far removed from his 3rd Rock from the Sun years). He recruits Tom Hardy, who is slated to play Mad Max in that upcoming franchise reboot, and Dileep Rao, most recently seen in Avatar. Cillian Murphy, whom Nolan used as the Scarecrow in Batman Begins, and the venerable Ken Watanabe also become involved.
The final member of Cobb's team serves the added function of being the "newbie," through whose eyes we see Cobb's world as outsiders. Ellen Page's character, Ariadne, is an intellectual prodigy but a novice at the art of dream invasion. She learns the tricks of the trade with us and shows an innate penchant for manipulating her way through the unreal. Because of the immediate respect her talent commands, she becomes the only character able to emotionally connect with Cobb, and thus also our window to his past. Page is as impressive here as she was in 2007's Juno, which earned her a Best Actress nomination. Hopefully she will continue to make such wise choices in her film roles.
With the team assembled, the movie goes into overdrive and doesn't allow the audience to come up for air. Nolan shows perfect synchronicity of script and directing, as well as a master director's ability to bring out the best in his performers. Pacing of exposition is interlaced flawlessly with the action so that the film comes to an emotional and narrative climax simultaneously. It's the kind of blend you can only get when an artist has complete creative control. This is the movie Christopher Nolan earned the chance to make with his success on the Batman films, and audiences are about to learn (or remember) how impressive the power of uninhibited imagination can be.
Inception operates within genre parameters while presenting an entirely unique set of challenges for its protagonists, blending familiarity with novelty in the tradition of the very best motion pictures of all time. Originality is such a rarity today that I almost neglected to find out that Inception is a completely original work of cinema, not based on any book, comic, television show, board game, juice box label, prequel or dusty old franchise. It's truly Nolan's baby, from the first written word to the final cut. One of the highest compliments I can say about a film is that I've seen nothing else quite like it. Neither, I suspect, have you.
Addendum:
I have to say something about Hans Zimmer's score for this film. I've heard that the recent trend, say the last decade or so, in film scores has been to shy away from having a central "theme"-- you know, those five or six bars that you keep humming to yourself after seeing the movie, sort of like this:
Like most things, I prefer the old-fashioned way of doing it, and I don't see why it could possibly be a bad thing to have an audience constantly thinking about a good movie by unconsciously humming bars from its score. The consequence of the trend is that some great movies of the last decade don't have truly memorable scores. Danny Elfman, love him or hate him, was responsible for one of the greatest theme songs of all time:
So when I saw that he was the composer for the new Spider-Man movie back in 2002, I was thrilled that we would get an equally great sonorous tribute to Spider-Man. But it wasn't to be. Elfman's score for the Spider-Manfilms is background noise, indiscernable from already noisy films and immediately forgettable. Knowing Elfman's past work, I'm confident that was a studio mandate (this was back when comic book films were just beginning to get credibility back).
Fast forward to to 2005 and Nolan's Batman Begins, the beginning of the best superhero film series ever created. Hans Zimmer and James Newton Howard collaborated on the score. While operating in the modern-day framework of motion picture scores, they managed to make music that does not leave your mind, in the most welcome way possible. The scores for both Batman films have been haunting. Nolan uses Zimmer again to compose for Inception and the result is similarly impressive.
I'm not a musical expert so I can't tell you how the composition differs given Howard's absence. However, I can say that Zimmer creates towering musical constructions that rival the daunting visual landscape of the film and the intensity of the caper that unfolds therein. Much like The Dark Knight, it occurred to me at one point while watching the film that the score is nearly constant. There are very few moments of genuine silence. More isn't always better for a film score, but Zimmer knows exactly how to make music that builds tension from scene to scene, never breaking it, so that the audience has no chance to stop and breathe unless he decides to release you. When there IS a moment of silence in Inception, it stands boldly apart. Thus, Zimmer manages to make his music and the lack thereof equally meaningful.
To that end, I recommend the score (downloadable on Amazon) as well as the film. Now, enough talk. Go see it!
Katrina Kaif is in yet another controversy with an adult video at the centre of it. Some months ago, there was a rumour going round that Katrina's sister Isabella had been in an adult video. It turned out that it was a lookalike. Now there's an adult video doing the rounds featuring a Katrina lookalike. And Kat's really mad about it.
