Inception - Movie Review

Inception tells the tale about sophisticated, mercenary neuro-criminals that raid a person’s subconscious during their dream-state in order to extract information. The team is led by Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) who

is the extractor – he tricks the mark into giving up the information. Accompanying him is Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt; 500 Days of Summer, Brick) the research analyst – he gathers and organizes history on the mark. They find themselves in need of a new architect – the person who designs the dream’s landscape which functions as a maze. Cobb finds young Ariadne (Ellen Paige; Juno, Smart People) to fill that role.

After a successful demonstration in Japan for a corporate guru – Saito (Ken Watanabe; Batman Begins, Shanghai), Cobb is offered a chance of a lifetime; an opportunity to return to the United States, and back to his children. Cobb had been accused of murdering his wife. He professed his innocence but the evidence against him was too strong, so Cobb has not allowed himself to even try returning home. Saito guarantees a safe homecoming if he and his team complete one last job, only it’s not an extraction, it’s an implant.

A rival corporation is on the verge of monopolizing Japan’s entire energy resource. The chairman is on his deathbed with complete control of the company ready to be transferred to his son Robert (Cilian Murphy; Red Eye, Cuckoo) but their relationship is fragile bordering on dysfunctional. Saito wants Cobb to implant an idea inside Robert’s subconscious – to separate the company into different corporate entities so that Saito’s businesses will be the dominant organization throughout Japan. Cobb hastily agrees, but there is a chance that his own subconscious might be usurping more control over his life than he thinks.

By no large means am I fan of Leonardo DiCaprio. He’s a fifty-year-old man trapped in a twelve-year-old….man’s body and I personally find it difficult to take him seriously the majority of the time. That’s not to say that I’m not a fan of some of the movies he’s been in, such as Eating Gilbert Grape, The Basketball Diaries, and especially This Boy’s Life. So, I was surprised at how much I really liked him in Inception. He can command a scene and control a movie, but the typical reasons why I tend to brush him off were not evident in this film. I enjoyed his performance, it helped that he had a great character to play, and this may be my second favorite film with DiCaprio in it, just behind This Boy’s Life.

The other actors did splendidly even though I can’t stomach Ellen Paige most of the time, but here she was tolerable. Joseph Gordon-Levitt has always been a mature actor and now he’s finally being offered mature roles. If you haven’t seen his performance in Brick, it is astounding and allowed him to step up to the big leagues. Michael Caine has a small but important role; Tom Hardy showed great range as Eames who is the con-artist and all around grunt of the team, and it was nice to see Cilian Murphy acting on the big screen again as I feel he is an underrated and even underappreciated actor. And, Ken Watanabe once again turns in some powerful, dynamic work.

Christopher Nolan spreads his charm and skills all over this film as both writer and director. When you look at certain profile shots and establishing shots, you immediately sense that this is a Christopher Nolan film, so the magic happens when the dream worlds start to implode and chaos runs amok in the subconscious, but I found myself preferring the story about Cobb and the relationship between he and his wife more than the actual implant job. To me, that plot was more bizarre and heart racing.

Inception seems to run long at a near two-and-a-half hour mark but in order for the ideas behind inception, extraction, and the roles of everyone involved to be clear to the audience that time is needed and is well spent. Once all of the explanations and examples are displayed, the ball really starts to roll. Some people have claimed to need multiple viewings to understand and appreciate the complexity of Inception, but I disagree. If you can stay awake, you can soak it all in easily enough.