InceptionFollow

Saw it at midnight opening night.

Hands down the best movie of the year. Lots of people are debating whether this or "The Dark Knight" is Nolan's best production to date; pretty solid consensus puts this as better. I really enjoyed it - everything was pretty well done. The effects were stunning, the tension in high gear in the last hour. The music was epic. DiCaprio played his role fantastically well, and will probably win an Oscar for either this or Shutter Island (or was that already last year?).

However, by the end of the movie I felt a bit of what you did, Belk. I didn't like it as much as I thought I would. While the concepts getting thrown around were really cool and novel, there was not much character development outside of Cobb and Mal. I couldn't remember who the kick-*** guy in the snow world was after watching the movie (I blame lack of sleep for some of that, but really, it's a little sad). I saw the ambiguous ending coming from a mile away. And since it was 2:45 when it finally ended, I REALLY felt the long run time.

That said, it really is a fantastic movie and my nitpicks should not be taken as glaring flaws. Hell, IMDB has it at a 9.3/10 rating after over 5000 votes. The action is not all that hard to follow, really. And I didn't see any plot loopholes, so while the concepts might be kinda new and complex, they aren't hard to understand when you see them in action.

Anyway, I really recommend seeing it, because it probably is going to be the best movie of the year.

Thanks for the heads up. I'm gonna see it at the Drive-In this week. I enjoy movies with a lot of "think" involved.

Edited, Jul 18th 2010 12:21am by Tok1031

I've never really understood why some people have such a visceral reaction against ambiguous endings. I don't mean any offense...I'm just puzzled by it. Obviously I often enjoy them, but it's certainly just my opinion, nothing more.

On topic. I just came from the theater. Absolutely loved the movie. I'm going to need a second viewing to fully appreciate it, I think, but I was pleasantly surprised that I was pretty much able to follow the storyline (the reviews that I had read beforehand made it out to be an impenetrable ********** It's going to go into my top 3-5 movies of all time, perhaps even higher after I've had some time to fully process it. Nolan is on fire, that's for sure.

My smallest of quibbles: I wasn't crazy about whats-her-name...Ellen Page? Not really a knock on her acting, which was fine enough. More like she didn't really seem to suit the gravitas of most of the scenes. I have trouble picturing her in anything that's not an indy-flick dark comedy, I guess. Other than that, perfect.

About character development: I don't feel like every movie has to lean on character development as its lynchpin. I thought what was provided in Inception did a solid job, particularly where it counted (with Leo and Cillian Murphy's characters). Devoting any more time to character development would have hurt the pacing, in my humble opinion. I wouldn't want the movie to lose any of its shine in other areas in order to further flesh that particular aspect out.

TLDR: Best picture, hands down.

Oh that's definitely fine. I don't mean to imply otherwise.

For me, ambiguous endings often work well. It's probably because my artistic training skews me towards liking things that aren't clear-cut or fully spelled out. I was taught to appreciate subtlety and ambiguity, even to prefer it to straightforwardness.

On a more rational level, I like such endings because they allow me to consider two possibilities, while still subconsciously leaning towards the one I prefer. In Inception, I now have the ending that I like, but I'm also able to ruminate on the implications of the other ending, as well. It's sort of like an intellectual bonus, I guess. As I see it, the movie is just a story that was told to me. It's fiction, so I don't need to be restrained by the "truth" of what happened. In my mind, it can end however I'd like it. Nolan put all the pieces in place for me to easily picture whatever ending I'd prefer.

I'm not saying that this is the way that you or anyone else should look at it. Just sharing my viewpoint : )

My friend took his girlfriend to see it yesterday. His reaction was about like Belkira's - not a BAD movie, but doesn't see what all the hype is about.

I didn't dislike the ending. I just though it pointless

It's the point of the entire movie. Jesus, really?? You didn't see the point?

The entire movie revolves around the idea of planting an idea in someone's mind, and having them think it's their own. The whole thing is a structured build up to the final scene designed for the viewer to think "wait, was that real or just a dream?" All the dialogue about inception being difficult and having to be subtle, blah blah blah, is just subtext for the effort gone through to make the spinning top money shot something people feel they can "figure out".

Information is clearly left out of our experience of the film *SOLELY* for this reason, so the ending can deliver.

How long has it been since Cobb has seen his kids? Intentionally not mentioned. What was Cobb's totem before his wife's death, and does he still have it? Intentionally not mentioned. Why isn't Cobb shown calling his father in law, who lives in Paris, and asking him to meet him at the Los Angeles airport? Intentionally not mentioned. Why are his children in identical poses to his memory when he re-unites with them? Intentionally not mentioned. Why aren't they at the airport? Etc. etc. etc. etc. etc. The whole thing is an excersize in meta-communication and marketing theory. The "plot" is meaningless, it's just there to fill space. All characters other than Cobb are meaningless one dimensional cut outs, as depthless as possible. We are meant not to care about any of them, on purpose, so we can see the end and wonder if they were real at all.

Get it yet? It's not the "butterfly dreaming I'm a man" hackneyed cliche that is the original part of the film, it's the wink at the end.

Now, to be clear, I thought it was stupid and ludicrously twee. I don't regret seeing the movie, and I'd recommend it to friends, but it would have been so much better if had been freed from the rigor of having to close the way it did and allowed some of the other characters to develop *at all*, with an actual resolution.

Probably would have sold less tickets, though, and definitely wouldn't have generated the word of mouth effected bu 1,000,000 suckers thinking there was a riddle to be solved.

I thought it was great. In an age where you can CGI action scenes to your heart's content, it was refreshing, & rather impressive, to see a movie do an action sequence the old fashioned way. Especially the hotel scene, that was friggin' gorgeous.

As for the ambiguousness, I liked it. Makes me want to see it again.

This comic, written by one of the producers, seems to answer the spinning top question if nothing else.

im really looking forward to go and see this movie this week hope it'll be as good as you ppl say :p

Seriously disappointing movie, but then I hyped the movie in advance for myself so I have no one to blame but myself for my disappointment I suppose.

DiCaprio's performance is identical as in Shutter Island (Spoilernot surprising as both character are basically identical), the story is weak and just plain uninteresting.

SpoilerTalk about using a sledgehammer to get a point across, the whole whining about Mal and what he did to her, all through the movie reminded me of Samwise Gamgee's notorious and seriously boring motivation speeches in Lord of the Rings, if at any time in that movie I wished for one character to die, it was right then. The story is flimsy and at times makes little sense, even if it was all a dream or not.

SpoilerSome compare the movie to "Paprika", an anime movie from a couple of years back, which Nolan said has served as a source of inspiration. The anime is better though. Can't help but think of Roger Zelazny's "The Dream Master", written in 1966 and definitely superior to both with a very similar topic.

Inception is at this moment the no. 3 in IMDB's top 250, seriously overrated.


Edited, Aug 1st 2010 1:30pm by Zieveraar

Personally, I didn't feel that the ending was really all that ambiguous. In my opinion, the top clearly began wavering, pointing to an ending based in reality. However, regardless of whether it was wavering or not, it doesn't matter because he gets to be with his family either way. The important thing to Cobb was that it no longer mattered whether it was reality or not (which is why he didn't bother to finish watching it spin).

Still, I agree with the OP that the characters were lacking. While the ideas of the movie were innovative, intriguing, and thought provoking, it seemed like it lacked emotional substance. Other than Cobb, the other characters seemed paper thin, mere tools to propagate the 'dream within a dream within a dream' framework of the movie. It was as if their primary purpose was to establish the 'rules' of the movie for the audience, resulting in dialogue that seemed forced and awkward at times. But even with Cobb, I felt unmoved by his circumstances because I simply didn't feel emotionally invested in him. Other than the love story, his character seemed one dimensional. Because of this, even the story lacked emotional depth (in my opinion). In turn, my lack of emotional connection to the characters translated into a lack of caring of their overall mission. I simply didn't care that much whether they succeeded or not, nor did I care about their fates.

Overall, I think it was a great movie, it just wasn't my kind of movie. As I mentioned, it was indeed thought provoking, innovative, and visually stunning, however, it seemed to me like they were trying to fit in the emotional substance around the "inception/dream within dream/what is reality" framework. In this sense, the movie emphasized "mind" rather than "heart".