8/3/2019 Review Text ~ Inception
1/2
Directed by : Christopher Nolan
Produced by : Christopher Nolan, Emma Thomas
Written by : Christopher Nolan
Starring : Leonardo DiCaprio, Ken Watanabe,
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard,
Ellen Page, Cillian Murphy, Tom Hardy,
Dileep Rao, Tom Berenger, Michael Caine
Music by : Hans Zimmer
Cinematography : Wally Pfister
Editing by : Lee Smith Studio Legendary Pictures, Syncopy
Films
Distributed by : Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date(s) : July 8, 2010 (London premiere) July 16, 2010
(United States)
Running time : 142 minutes
Country : United States
Language : English
Budget : $160 million
Gross revenue : $823,576,195
Inception is a 2010 science fiction action film, which was
written, produced, anddirected by Christopher Nolan. The film
features an ensemble cast starring LeonardoDiCaprio, Ken Watanabe,
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page, TomHardy,
Cillian Murphy, Dileep Rao, Tom Berenger, and Michael Caine.
There comes a point when enough is too much. Writer and director
ChristopherNolan makes an intelligent thought-piece that is at the
same time an explosive actionthriller. There is little time to
absorb the ideas. Still, where else are you going to get
sointelligent a film in mid-summer? It may be better to see it more
than once. In a worldwhere a few people have the capability of
invading and redesigning dreams, a teaminduces dreams in the heir
to an industrial empire and then enters those dreams to plant
an idea. This is a long film with a lot of fiery explosions,
intelligent ideas, sputteringmachine guns, and violent car
crashes.
Complex Sentence
Metaphor
Qualitative Attributes
Mental Process
8/3/2019 Review Text ~ Inception
2/2
People frequently ask science fiction authors, "Where do you get
your ideas?"Director Christopher Nolan seems to specialize in films
in which psychology and heresuggests a process that might create
some ideas. The process involves car chases, bigexplosions, drugs,
cities folding in half, and perhaps industrial espionage. Since
Nolandirected FOLLOWING in 1998 every film he has directed has been
something of agem. His 2006 film THE PRESTIGE has been pretty much
his crowning achievement,though his second Batman film, THE DARK
KNIGHT (2008), has brought him themost attention. The theme of
manipulating or visiting other people's minds and dreamsgoes back
at least to ESCAPEMENT (1958), DREAMSCAPE (1984) and
particularlyTHE CELL (2000). But it will be a long time before
anyone tops INCEPTION.
Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his associate Arthur (Joseph
Gordon-Levitt)are experts at a very particular sort of industrial
espionage. Cobb has a process, neverdisclosed, in which he is able
to invade people's dreams and interact with the dreamer.In doing so
he can find secrets from the unprepared minds of his victims. And
at thesame time he can plant ideas in the mind of the victim.
However, he is unsuccessful ininvading the mind of a businessman
named Saito (Ken Watanabe of THE LASTSAMURAI). Saito is prepared
for Cobb and defeats him, but offers Cobb a job. Saitowants to get
into the dreams of the son of a competitor and plant an idea. He
assemblesa team of dream invaders who will specially induce dreams.
They will actually build themultilayered world of dreams within
dreams in the competitor's son's mind.
Nolan, who both wrote and directed, creates a complex mythology
of the world ofdreams and the rules that it follows. The rules are
a little ridiculous, but in the world ofthe movie the viewer
accepts them as plausible enough. This is a long film, 148minutes,
with a much more complex plot than I can describe here.
INCEPTION has a large, oddly matched, cast of good actors
including Ellen Page,Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger,
Marion Cotillard, Pete Postlethwaite,Michael Caine, and Lukas
Haas.
In a summer in which interesting ideas in films seem to be thin
on the ground, thisone film more than compensates. Nolan gets very
high marks for being a man with newand engaging ideas. Usually if
he is not making a "Batman" film his works are muchmore idea-films
than action. Sadly, Nolan must have picked up bad habits from
the"Batman" films, BATMAN BEGINS and THE DARK KNIGHT. A "Batman"
filmneeds action scenes and frankly, he is not really good at
directing them. They go by atstaccato pace and frequently are hard
to follow. In a "Batman" film one can accept that.INCEPTION has
long violent sequences. He may be trying too hard to make this at
thesame time an intelligent thriller and a slam-bang, high-octane
action thriller with lots ofexplosions. This is certainly his least
pleasant film to watch, even if it does have manyof his best ideas
and images.
The film is INCEPTION and despite its tired plot conventions,
its two and half hourrunning time and its director's slightly
overrated resume, it works. Nolan manages toweave a story that is
both engaging and compelling. His greatest accomplishment hereis
his ability to express the film's fairly abstract and convoluted
ideas in a way that isboth understandable to the layman and not
reeking too incessantly of run-of-the-millexposition.
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