Inception

Inception

Writer and director, Christopher Nolan, creates a sci-fi brain child unlike any of his previous work, which includes Memento, Insomnia, and Dark Knight.  Nolan features Leonardo DiCaprio along with Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Ken Watanabe, and Marion Cotillard to bring this mind-bending motion picture to life.  Apparently Nolan did a remarkable job of planting the seed in the subconscious of the nominating committee, because Inception was able to walk away with four Oscars and eight nominations.  I’m sure it was only something he could have dreamed of when the idea first came to mind.

Inception begins with Dom Cobb (DiCaprio) speaking to an elderly foreign man named Saito (Ken Watanabe).  In a blink of an eye, the film shifts gears and Saito is 40 years younger and speaking to Cobb and Arthur (Levitt) regarding the intricacies of dream extraction.  At the time, Saito is unaware that he is currently the focus of another company’s attempt to excerpt information via his present state of rest.  The dream goes wrong and Cobb and his crew are pulled back to reality just in time or so we are lead to believe.

After his experience with Cobb, Saito attempts to hire him to go from extraction of information to planting an idea or inception.  Saito needs to convince a rival’s son to sell his father’s company when he dies in order for Saito’s organization to survive.   He promises to help Cobb return home to his children whom he had to leave because of a pending legal issue, if he can only complete this task.  With the thought of being able to return home to his family, Cobb agrees to this one final mission, which will be more difficult than any extraction performed in the past.

Cobb has to enlist additional help in order to complete his mission.  He begins by recruiting Ariadne (Page) who is an up and coming architect and comes highly recommended.  Cobb quickly realizes her potential and ability to recognize fantasy and reality, which he seems to have lost.  He also recruits two other individuals who specialize in deception and chemistry.  With his group complete and trained, Cobb locates and details his plan on how to enter the dream of their target.

Because planting an idea is extremely difficult, the team must set up a dream within a dream within a dream.  Sound complicated?  It was for me as well.  The purpose of going so deep into a dream state is so that they can plant the idea in the subconscious mind of the targeted individual.  This allows the person to believe that he generated the idea on his own and was not influenced by an outside source.  Everything should go just as planned, unless a sleeping foe awakes to turn this tiered dream into an unending nightmare.

So, did I like the movie?  Yes, I did like the movie although I didn’t really love it.  I enjoyed the special effects, but the acting wasn’t all that great.  In fact, there were times where I felt like it was way over acted…almost not believable.  I did enjoy the movie and found the idea intriguing, but a musical score, special effects and sound editing really can’t make up for so-so acting.  Also, the ending perplexed me a bit.  I wish they would have made it a little clearer.  With that said, I give this film 3.5 stars for a creative idea and would suggest everyone give it a spin.  

That’s How Matt Sees It!