Inception Review

[Westside Steve]

Inception

 

Warner Bros.

PG 13 148 min

 

 

 

First gang I’d like to state for the record that I believe Chris Nolan is one of the generations most important directors. MEMENTO was a landmark in film making that set the bar and created it’s own sub genre, whatever it is you might call it.

Remember? That was about a man with absolutely no long term memory. Every morning he woke to a blank mental slate, with no recollection of anything that had gone on before. His task was to sort out the events involving a murder by trying to record them, via notes and tattoos, and make sense of it all anew fresh every single day.

You never really do figure it out and that’s part of the genius. There are books and a companion DVD dedicated to solving the films mystery.

Now, after mega success with the latest BATMAN series Nolan has saved up enough artistic capital for another turn on the auteur ride.

Oh he’s done some good work in INSOMNIA with Al Pacino and THE PRESTIGE (though I didn’t care for that book) that have kept his legend (and marketability) sailing and Nolan now has free reign for the latest project

He’s put together another intriguing yet nearly unfathomable epic in the smash hit INCEPTION.

What do I think?

Well, allow me to digress. There’s an extremely complicated style of jazz called “hard bop” which is outside the realm of comprehension for most music lovers. Hell I play for a living and just can’t get next to the non melodic and seeming random bunches of notes. Now I realize that there are some guys who are so refined in their musical appreciation that they enjoy it.

I’ll also bet that there are a lot of musicians who’d never admit to their jazz head pals that it sounds like holy hell for fear of seeming unsophisticated.

You know, it’s like telling the emperor “Dude what new clothes??? You’re butt naked!!!:”

So I apologize for sounding like the dumbass here but as cool as it was, as powerful as the graphics were and as deep as the story must have been, I didn’t get it.

In MEMENTO you knew that something was weird and you knew why. Everything to hero learned the day before was erased the following day and he had to retrace his steps and figure out what the notes he’d made meant.

Here you know from the very beginning that you won’t ever know what is a dream and what isn’t.

Is there really a security company at all? Are all the characters part of the random events or none? Who can tell?

Oh it’s a good guess that as soon as the FX start acting up it’s a dram for sure but how about the minutes or seconds just before the world turns crazy?

There are all kinds of plots going on but you will never really know which are real and which are insanity.

There isn’t much but a huge sense of WTF as you watch scene after baffling scene.

And there are no characters to identify with since there aren’t any real problems solutions or good and bad guys as far as you can tell.

No one to empathize with or hate.

As for the acting; it’s OK.

I neither hate nor love DiCaprio though I’ve not seen him really master a difficult role since GILBERT GRAPE.

I’m giving INCEPTION an incomplete until I have time to sit down and watch it again, which I’ll do after this Put In Bay stretch slows down.

Nolan deserves that kind of consideration though at first glance I fear it’s complication for it’s own sake.

 

WSS

 

email westsidesteve@aol.com

[ballpeen]

I don't need to see it again... a C is a generous rating.