Inception (Movie) : An Annotated Review //
If you haven’t heard, Leo has returned to the big screen, and this time it’s not just about making preteen girls cry - I’ll never let go.
But really, Leonardo DiCaprio has been hitting big at the box office. Intelligent thriller Shutter Island has brought in nearly 300 million for Warner Bros this year and I’m confident that Inception will be Warner’s new golden egg laid by DiCaprio. More importantly, It looks like Leo is on a box office roll and his performance in SciFi Action Film Inception is one of his most impressive yet.
Following an engaging and complex story line, Inception is a action thriller about the quest to plant an idea into the subconscious through a counterfeit dream-like experience. According to the story, people are much more vulnerable to divulge their secrets in a dream versus reality. Dom Cobb (DiCaprio) is the cunning and daring dream extractor, who illegally steals secrets from the minds of his targets. However when approached ever so artfully with the job of Inception (illegally planting an idea into someones mind) Cobb assembles a crew - including Juno star Ellen Page as Ariadne (The Archetect) and an array of others to embark on the dangerous mission to attempt inception on an energy conglomerate heir (Played by Cillian Murphy). The ultimate aim of the mission: to plant the idea in the heir’s mind, leading to the destruction of his late fathers empire and his personal inheritance - not an easy task by any means.
Written and Directed by Christopher Nolan, acclaimed director of The Dark Knight, Inception delivers. Buckle up for more intelligent storytelling, sharp characters, and - of course - explosions, slow motion, special effects, and every conceivable combination of the aforementioned. Driving the film is the mind bending-ly complex narrative which is held reasonable by it’s own logic and set of rules (Toem’s, Subconscious, Projections, etc). Although it would be expected for a director to struggle with such a complex narrative with so many underlying issues, Nolan, DiCaprio, Page, and Murphy truly weave a compelling tale of Loss, Life, Dreams, and Treachery that is both intelligent and well paced.
Branding this movie as “The Matrix” of 2010 would do it little justice, although the comparison is not unfounded. All in all: A compelling story, a tortured hero, a artful director, and a focused cast leads to one hell of an evening in late July!
