Inception Review -- No Spoilers!

I am so glad nobody spoiled ‘Inception’ for me.

Unlike many similar cultural touchstones which turn on an element of surprise, there were no mean-spirited shitheads in my twitter/lifestream who felt like getting a cheap thrill by blurting out any one of a dozen things that would have detracted from my firsthand experience of the movie. For this, I thank all of you. The closest anybody came was the must-be-destroyed Kid Critic piece from Good Morning America that Bollow linked to the other day. And even he had the decency not to talk about the plot, he just whined about how COMPLICATED the whole thing was.

I’ll pass along the favor, although I think at this point I’m probably part of the “long tail” in terms of making it to the damn theatre, and will instead summarize what came up as we were walking home from the movie.

Chris Nolan has redeemed himself as a director and auteur after the ham-handed job on Dark Knight. This film delivers on the promise of ‘Momento’ by taking his interest in unusual time-sequences and repeated motifs and polishing the hell out of them. None of it feels like a gimmick or show-off cleverness (viz ‘Primer’), and that restraint is more impressive than the technical dexterity itself — which is considerable.

Indeed, there’s more than a touch of David Lynch in this movie, and I say that as a huge Lynch fan. Jen found the 40s scratchy gramophone music reminiscent of ‘mulholland drive’; I agree and feel like the intensity of the acting — particularly DiCaprio and particularly when he’s trying to communicate with dreamers — had that Lynchian tone of “the words I am saying may seem like nonsense but it is vitally important that you understand me!”. I love that stuff!

Speaking of DiCaprio, I think he did a great job here. The last thing I saw him in was actually the first review I put on this blog, Shutter Island and I was less than enthusiastic about it. But in ‘Inception’ he maintained both Cobb’s professional veneer over his fraying sanity and hit strong emotional notes when he had to.

The rest of the cast did quite well; each of the male sidekicks was different enough that I wanted to know more about them and (contra Kid Critic, may the demons feast on his entrails) Ellen Page was much more than just a vehicle for explanation. In fact she’s the key to the whole thing, and I thought it was great that there was a female lead who wasn’t a sex object or wallpaper.

I dunno, I just find it really gratifying when there’s a mainstream American movie that treats the audience with a bit of respect. Hell, it ended on a note of… ambiguity. Is that even allowed?

Next up: ‘The Expendables’!