Gail sees a movie: Inception

I like the idea behind Inception more than I like the film itself. Considering its box office success and positive word of mouth, perhaps I am in the minority. Inception maintained a high level of excitement throughout and the action sequences and effects are first rate. I enjoyed the film while I watched it, but found it eminently forgettable. Why all the fuss?

Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) agrees to assemble a team for one last job of corporate espionage, so he can stop running from the authorities and return to his family. But Cobb does not break into offices; he breaks into the human mind. Inception is the process of accessing the mind (and planting an idea) through dreams. Business mogul Saito(Ken Watanabe) needs to convince Robert Fischer, Jr. (Cillian Murphy) to break up his father’s companies. But this mission requires “shared” dreaming convincing enough to fool the dreamer’s subconscious. Soon Cobb is joined by his dream team of Ariadne (Ellen Page), Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Yusuf (Dileep Rao) and Eames (Tom Hardy) in action sequences that take place in their shared dreams. Of course, there is the risk that their minds will be destroyed, and the subconscious is a scary place. This is especially true in Cobb’s case, as his dead wife Mal (Marion Cotillard) has turned into a malevolent presence in all of his dreams, and threatens the minds of everyone on the mission.

Going into a film like this, you expect a fuzzy and convoluted plot, and Inception does not disappoint. In true Christopher Nolan fashion, the action starts in the middle and the past is slowly revealed. I like films where I have to really concentrate to figure out what is happening, and Inception is certainly that kind of film. The scenes of buildings inverting and crumbling, shown on those copious advertisements for the film, are still powerful. The parts of the dreams without gravity, featuring a floating Joseph Gordon-Levitt, were among my favorites. I especially liked all of the scenes that had the audience (and sometimes the characters) struggling to distinguish between dreams and reality. But one problem with the script is that there does not seem to be enough at stake. Where the characters in the The Matrix films fought against a dream world created by artificial intelligence in order to live in reality as free humans, the mission in Inception is motivated by greed. The ethical concerns arising from forcing an idea into the subconscious of an unsuspecting dreamer are barely mentioned. The weak justifications for the breach of ethics are almost an afterthought. This makes rooting for the characters difficult.

I still think Leonardo DiCaprio turned in his best performance in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, ^[1] and has been inconsistent in his lead roles. His Cobb is a bit dull and he appears to be sleepwalking through this film. It is great to finally see Ellen Page in an adult role, and all of her scenes make the film better. Page and Gordon-Levitt have real chemistry and I would have liked to see more scenes with them. All of the other characters on the mission are more interesting than Cobb, but we never get to really know them. This is a shame because Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe and Dileep Rao have plenty of charisma and deserve even more screen time. When Cobb meets his father Miles (Michael Caine) Cobb tells Miles that “you taught me to navigate people’s minds” and I wanted to know more about this interesting character played by the charismatic Caine. But then Miles disappears for almost all of the rest of the film. Marion Cotillard’s performance is so strong that she practically blows DiCaprio off the screen. The problem is that she only exists in flashbacks. It is hard to get invested in her; yet she could be the film’s best character.

When much is revealed at the end of the film (I won’t give anything away here), I was underwhelmed. The technology of shared dreaming and its many possible uses are much more interesting to me than the fate of the morose Cobb. Writer/director Christopher Nolan has made some wonderful films. But Inception lacks the heart-pounding excitement and subtle intelligence of previous efforts like ^[2]The Dark Knigh ^[2]t and Memento ^[3]. Inception is enjoyable at times, but I expected better.

Inception. Directed by Christopher Nolan .  Leonardo DiCaprio(Cobb), Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Arthur), Ellen Page (Ariadne), Tom Hardy ( Eames), Ken Watanabe (Saito), Cillian Murphy  (Robert Fischer, Jr.), Tom Berenger(Browning), Marion Cotillard (Mal), Dileep Rao (Yusuf) and Michael Caine (Miles). Warner Brothers Pictures, 2010.

Gail sees a movie appears every Wednesday.