Toy Story 3 arrives this week, just in time for the school holidays, other summer blockbuster fare include Predators, Shrek Forever After, The A-Team and The Karate Kid Theses films are great examples of Hollywood blockbusters; Predators will have big sci-fi guns and luminous alien blood, Schrek 4 will be another twisted take on a fairy tale with retro fitted jokes, the A-Team will have a thin plot that ruins our childhood memories an loads of explosions and we can be sure Toy Story 3 will be funny, sad and the best 3D CG we’ve ever seen.
How do we know all this? They are all continuations of established franchises. Toy Story 3 is the third film in a trilogy that put Pixar on the baron CGI feature map and they won’t change their award winning formula - they’ll just build on it. Like most big films this summer, Hollywood just banks on pre-existing ideas with established characters and familiar plots.
Inception is different; it is a new script, and a new film. Sure it deals with themes and ideas that have been in fantasy and sci-fi writer’s collective conscience for decades, but as a film event it’s original. Brilliantly, mind bendingly original. A good way of looking at Inception is as an advanced summer blockbuster; it should have a limited sci-fi, cult audience akin to films like Alex Proyas’ Dark City, but more people will watch it due to it’s bankable stars like 
Leonardo DiCaprio helped out by it’s massive advertising push.
Nolan’s reboot of the tired Batman franchise has given comic book adaptations a grown up adult feel. And it seems doesn’t matter if you read them as a kid anymore, The Dark Knight broke a few box office records including the biggest grossing weekend and the highest opening week ever. So the public are voting with their feet and they seem to like his style. It’s these figures that allow Nolan to produce films like Inception. His unique position in Hollywood is something other filmmakers can only dream of at this level in 
their career. Nolan’s huge success has given him an unusual freedom and this freedom shows.
Nolan delivers something different with Inception, something cerebral, something we’ve seen in cinema before, but with the believability of his unique reality: The Matrix, but real. The story has a simple premise: That of the ultimate industrial espionage, stealing information from inner space, idea theft. Something I’m sure many government facilities have toyed with over the years.
However the plot of Inception is a little more complex and somewhat akin to the feel of it’s main subject; dreams. The worries and concerns of how I was going take in and believe this fantastical yet familiar world were soon quashed as the Russian doll of a script started to open up. The Matrix dared us to see how far the rabbit hole goes and Nolan has shown us. The labyrinthine script starts with a lengthy set up that is thankfully devoid of Star Trek techno babble, lots of new ideas, but easy to swallow and take onboard. We never really find out how those metal briefcases work, but it doesn’t matter, there is more at stake. Also the characters are introduced and set up, something an established franchise doesn’t have to do.
Then, as I was wondering where the train in the street was and where it was all going, it starts. James Bond style sieges and the nicest slo-mo ever, cross cutting between four or five scenarios, some in reality some not, but all real. No journey FX, no wobbly Avatar rainbow tubes to fall down. Just a sharp cut into a new exciting situation. As Cobb says, you don’t ever remember getting to where you are in a dream.
The tension builds and builds, more than helped out by another epic soundtrack by the brilliant Hans Zimmer, with touches of Vangelis’ Blade Runner soundscape. (Listen out for this on Top Gear soon!) The information we have gained from the first half comes into play in the second, all the dos and don’ts of this world unfold through the multilayered script. I do feel that Nolan’s writing could have benefited from a look over or a rewrite form an external source, I imagine his brother Jonathan Nolan gave him a helping hand, a few scenes did linger slightly and some dialogue did seem a little stilted.
The more I think about this movie the more I feel that I haven’t seen anything like it before and the more I want to see it again. Looking at films that delve in to the human psyche in a physical way don’t even seem to come close to Inception, What Dreams May Come or Identity for example.
I can highly recommend this movie to all. It’s best not to form much of an opinion or worry too much about the story, just wait and see. A word of advise; make sure you are not tired when viewing Inception, you may feel like you’ve nodded off and missed 20 minuets but stay with it. It’s more that worth it. Complicated but connected like Magnolia but I got it on the first watch.
I feel this review doesn't come close to what I want to really say about Inception. I've written and rewritten this review a few times and it still isn't quite right. I really want to keep it shortish...
I realise I haven't mentioned the brilliant performances for the supporting cast; Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, the brilliant Ken Watanabe and the not as annoying-as-I-thought-she-would be Ellen Page Then there's Nolan's lucky charm Michael Caine and the creepy Cillian Murphy. Tom Berenger makes an appearance too and Cobb's disturbed wife played by the haunting Marion Cotillard. Also all the other references, the 2001: A Space Odyssey style room, the brilliant regretful tones of Édith Piaf's 'Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien', Wally Pfister's amazing photographic style and I haven't even touched on the sublime special effects. I feel I need to watch it again and again.
Woof.
No comments:
Post a Comment