WARNING: This post completely spoils the new Christopher Nolan flick, Inception. If you have not seen it yet and wish to remain surprised, stop reading now. I mean it.
Okay, before I get started let me say that there are some things I liked about Inception. The dream-within-a-dream concept was neat, and clearly some of the scenes were visually stunning. (I liked the train appearing out of nowhere in Dream Layer Uno.) I particularly enjoyed how the opening scene featured Leo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, and Lukas Haas — it was like the “child stars done good” segment. And as a Canadian, I am actually bound by government legislation to think Ellen Page is adorable.
However, due to sheer frustration over being told repeatedly by friends and internets that this movie was smart as hell, I feel a retort is in order. So let’s skip over all the stuff I liked and get to the end of the movie, shall we? In the final scene, there is an indication that either a) everything is still all a dream; or b) the top is all teetering, leaving it up to the viewer to decide whether it was all a dream or not. (My intrepid movie viewing companion and I differed on this point.)
Look, if you did not know in the first 30 minutes of this movie that it would have an “it was all a dream… or was it!” M. Night-esque ending, then I can only assume that you have never seen a film before in your life. They may as well have written it on the screen in giant letters. “BOY IT SURE IS TOUGH TO KEEP TRACK OF WHICH REALITY YOU’RE IN WINK WINK.” A shocking ending would have been tying everything up neatly, or just leaving Leo in fake sand world for the rest of time. What we got, though, was a 100% expected “twisty” ending.. so stop pretending you were so surprised.
In either ending interpretation, there is a pretty good chance that Leo is stuck in a dream. Think about that. Who put him in the dream? When did it happen? His little top totem worked at some point, so it was during the course of the movie. Seriously, ponder this, dear reader: is there any information given at any point about how he would get in a “top level” dream, who would put him there, and what the purpose was? Clever story writing gives clues and hints and sly glances at this kind of thing. At the end, when the twist is revealed, we the audience clutch our heads and say, “Oh my god, so when X did totally innocuous activity Y it set off Z! I understand now!”
Incredibly clever story writing does not just randomly make shit happen because it’s neat. The ending could have been Leo coming home to find his entire family had been eaten by hat-wearing bears, and there would have been almost as much story to back it up.
And I’m not even touching on the general failings of the script, like … why Ken Watanabe came along at all. Hey, I’m an owner of a major multi-national company with powerful rivals and equally powerful friends and probably a busy schedule, so I’m gonna go into a very dangerous espionage mission with crazy technology and a strong chance of death? It’s like Star Trek, when the deadly planet surface would be explored by a party made up of the Captain and all the critical department heads. Hey, hope The Federation keeps their organization succession plans all shored up.
The point being, I don’t mind those kind of fairly minor failings in a pretty, entertaining movie. But Inception has been such a little hype machine, and I’m tired of the internet telling me that it was brilliant and soooo smart and deserves Oscars by the bucketloads. You want an intelligent movie with a final moment that kicks you in the guts and in the brains, check out Nolan’s early work, Memento.
Now there’s a movie where everything clicks into place with sickening ease and you realize what people will truly do to escape reality.
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This pretty much sums up my life. Judging by the hundreds of comments, I am not alone.
Are you tired of lugging around lukewarm watermelons? No more! Now you can just cart them to and fro. (No word on if they come in square shape too.)
I really liked the movie and was largely satisfied with the ending. It was really the only ending the movie could have had; it was broadcast throughout the film.
Confusion on the final top-spin, I think, was done intentionally. The sequence is: the top falls over, Cobb heads out to play with the kids, the top is upright and spinning. It is as though Cobb has been the victim of inception himself and refuses to perceive something that contradicts that he might not be in the real world. This would hold true for the other times the top falls over earlier in the movie.
There were large parts that were obvious and predictable, and yet, I felt that it was a fine popcorn flick. I went in expecting a fun sci-fi film and that’s what I got. I think part of the difference might have been that I have avoided whatever hype is out there. I’m rather spoiler-phobic so avoid reviews and the like myself unless it is a movie I’m not sure about in the first place.
Was it an Oscar worthy film? Maybe for special effects and the like; it was a beautifully created movie. For what it is, an interestingly designed sci-fi film with a somewhat novel premise, it was pretty good.