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INCEPTION is...odd. I firmly believe it's a brilliantly staged film, and Nolan's juggling of (at times) *five* different layers of "reality" is deliriously audacious and flawlessly crafted. There were sequences in the film that left my mouth agape and my senses delighted, head spinning from both the story and the production skill required to pull it off.
That said, I found it a bit lacking. Part of this, I'll admit, is likely my own prejudice. In my younger days, it was the more concrete aspects of a film that I admired. The cold, hard realities of Stanley Kubrick films were my mind's play-land, and that master of clinical detachment my cinematic professor. As I've aged, however, the mechanics of plot have lost much of their luster for me, and that elusive and intangible aspect known as "heart" had come to the fore as relevant and important.
INCEPTION feels much like a Kubrick film in its machinations. The joys of the film come not from engaging characters, but from bearing witness to the skillful juggling, as Nolan weaves so many disparate threads together into a cohesive narrative. And make no mistakes, the joys found within are plentiful and original.
The performances are uniformly excellent, but aside (possibly) from Dom, about whom should we care? It seems almost churlish to ask more of a film so intelligent, so willing to ask for attention and thought from its audience, so lovingly handcrafted, but wouldn't it be better to leave the film talking about the philosophical underpinnings or the great character interactions, rather than the (admittedly intricate and fascinating) clockwork mechanics of the plot?
All of my criticisms stem from my own biases, mind you. I'm blaming the film for not being the film I wanted, rather than being bad at what it was. I found the film to be a fantastically entertaining, engaging, and fascinating ride. I just suppose I expected to be able to add 'though-provoking' to that list, to be able to discuss the morality and justifications of the characters, to examine philosophical underpinnings inherent in a world in which it's possible to invade a person's innermost sanctuary and mold it to your whim. As it stands, it's just a heist film, albeit one with a unique conceit and impeccable prduction. It's more the cinematic equivalent of a Rubik's cube. It's not a film for the heart, but it is one for the brain and senses.
4.5 stars out of 5
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I did actually predict this ending as one of the most likely ones from fairly early on, which was surprising to me because usually in movies like this I miss the mark. Maybe I've just reached the threshold of seeing enough movies "like this". There were a multitude of possible alternative endings, all of which I tossed around throughout the film, and all of which were plausible at various times throughout the film, but as the minutes winnowed down, the actual ending seemed like the most reasonable ending.
