SPOILER WARNING – I’m going to talk about Inception in detail here, including the ending. If you haven’t seen the movie yet, you might want to skip this post until you see it.
Inception is a total mind-fuck. I think this was well expressed by the audience at the theater where I saw it. As soon as the credits rolled, there was a loud wail of anguish from people in the crowd. This wasn’t the same wail of anguish you’d hear at a Last Airbender screening; it wasn’t coming from a poor quality standpoint. The camera just stays on that damn spinning top for so long, then it starts wobbling and…black. Was Leo awake? Was he still dreaming? To quote a teen in the lobby after the movie: “Christopher Nolan must die!” Again, I think this was coming from a different place than when that was said about M. Night Shamalan from teens after seeing a different movie across town.
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I really liked Inception. It was like a combination of Lost’s sideways reality, The Matrix and The Sixth Sense. For a very exposition-heavy movie, I think Nolan did a good job of interspersing the exposition so that Inception didn’t feel weighed down by it.
I liked the open-ended ending. At first it looked like that top was going to keep spinning forever and he was still dreaming. But then it starts wobbling and I really hoped it would fall down, because I wanted a happy ending for the guy. But it ended before we could get our answer. Does it even matter? Leo walks away from the top before it stops spinning. It’s as if he said, “this is my real world,” reunited with his kids. If you wake up in heaven, do you question it? Leo risks everything to return to his family, and in the end he’s satisfied that he’s reunited with them to the point that he doesn’t even glance back at the top. But we do. Not that we have a choice, the camera is staring right at, spinning and wobbling away.
I want to see this movie a second time, largely to watch the wake-up scene on the plane again. I don’t remember what the order was of people waking up. Maybe that gives us some clue as to whether or not Leo was actually awake in the end. Was he the last one to wake up? If he wasn’t, I think would lean heavily towards him being still asleep. Everyone else should have made it out of the dream before him, right?
Inception reminded me a lot of The Matrix, to the point that I’m really hoping they don’t mess up any sequels the way that the ball was completely dropped with the two Matrix sequels. Then again, I have faith in Christopher Nolan. The Dark Knight was my favorite movie of 2008, so I know the guy can do sequels well. But really, I can’t even see where you’d go with this movie in a second one. It works so well on its own. We don’t need Inception 2: The Search for Leo.
Tuesday Night Movies is on a road trip! We saw Inception at Reel Pizza in Bar Harbor, Maine. I love this movie theater. This might be my favorite movie theater. It’s this or LA’s Arclight.
What makes Reel Pizza so great? Basically, it’s the concession stand. While other theaters have branched out from popcorn and candy to include nachos and pretzel bites, you can order pizzas at Reel Pizza. The topping list is extensive. Don’t feel like pepperoni tonight? Why not go for mussels, artichoke hearts or goat cheese? Need something to wash it down with? How about a beer? That’s right, beer. And it’s good beer too. They offer Guinness and selections from local breweries, all for cheaper than what a Bud Light would run you in NYC.
The two theaters were designed with the concession stand in mind. Each row of seats has a counter in front of it to put your pizza tray and beer. The first three rows of taken up by couches and easy chairs. These seats are usually the first to go. TV trays are available for viewers lucky enough to snag these seats. When your pizza is ready, a BINGO board on the side wall silently announces your number to let you know that your pizza is waiting for you in the lobby. They even throw an intermission into each movie so that you can grab another beer, or if you’re hungry, another pizza.
I haven’t been to Bar Harbor without going to Reel Pizza. If you’re there, it’s a must-stop-at destination.
I saw Inception on the opening Saturday morning, so I was lucky enough to avoid the teenage gasps. Nolan continues to be one of my favorites, I especially like that he wrote it himself although he may be as lost in the end as we are. I would put ‘Inception’ a notch below ‘The Dark Knight’ and ‘Memento’.
The top was left spinning to be opened ended, and with that I have no problem. No sequel needed, and hopefully no sequel will be provided.
Hats off to Ellen Page who more than held her own. I had my doubts that she could play against Leo, especially in a non-comedic role and she was fantastic. Joseph Gordon-Levitt also was great, and leads me to hope that he does take the Riddler role in the next Batman (he would be much better than Jude Law or NPH).
The only problem I had with the movie was the over reliance on near misses which would have ended their quest. At points I almost felt that I was watching ‘2012’ which also suffered from the same problem, although that movie had quite a few other issues as well. Some of these near misses were near death, others which seemed to stretch the already stretched out reality of the dream world. Which reminds me of the freight train defense, which they trained into his dreams. The only way this would make sense would be that he was trained to see a freight train which is out of place and this would make him realize it was a dream, but he was blind folded and did not realize… too much for me, if it was part of his defense to assault his attackers why not have multiple trains set to attack the entire dream.
All in all, 4 stars. The best movie I have seen this year but hoping we will see better.
My only problem with the movie was that it bugged me that they spent so much time in the beginning explaining the “rules” (if they get killed in the dream, they wake up, etc) only to change them at the end to raise the stakes. It would have had the same effect had they presented the audience with the revised “rules” at the very beginning.
I LOVED Joseph Gordon-Levitt. This movie still didn’t give me any reason to ever watch Leonardo DiCaprio in anything; he is blarg and looks like a mini-mate figure brought to life.
I thought it was great; Leo was sort of boring, but fine, and Ellen Page and JGL did the best work I’ve seen from them. [might have to revise that when GI Joe 2 comes out!] Visually, there was some great stuff (mostly during Juno’s first time dreaming), and I won’t even take away points from Nolan for recycling the snowy ninja lair from Batman Begins.
I was really worried, probably starting about 15 minutes in, that the ending would be some sort of “It was all a dream — I mean, more of a dream than we told you!” cop-out. And as we got to the end, I was especially worried, but I think they handled it perfectly. My audience had a collective, audible gasp at the end, which I thought was a nice reaction.
I haven’t walked away from a movie so impressed in a while, but I do have a little fear that if I saw it again I’d see some holes (like the ones you guys already pointed out) — as it was, I was just sucked in and went along for the ride.
@nicholas Have you seen Brick or The Lookout? If not, you definitely should. JGL is great in both of them.
cool action movie ^^. Like this!