review text ~ inception
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8/3/2019 Review Text ~ Inception
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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.
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8/3/2019 Review Text ~ Inception
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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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