Inception

[Kid_Eternity]

Seeing it Sunday, cant wait!

 

[The Groke]

Spoiler: ending

I reckon it was probably a bit of a cheap shot and the resolution was as it appears; the wobble ends in a fall and the fact that he saw his kids faces reinforces that. Unless of course the film stops playing by the rules it established.

 

[gaijingirl]

Spoiler: ending

I reckon it was probably a bit of a cheap shot and the resolution was as it appears; the wobble ends in a fall and the fact that he saw his kids faces reinforces that. Unless of course the film stops playing by the rules it established.

Spoiler: ending

yeah but the only rule was the one about whether it falls or not - and we don't see whether or not it does - it looks like it's going to fall though right? It gets a bit more wobbly... The think about seeing his kids faces - that was something personal to him - not an indicator of reality - that was my reading of it. Anyway, I thought it was a fairly predictable way to end - but then I guess it was one way of avoiding an even more predictable "happy ending" and obviously means there's always scope for a follow up...

 

[Cid]

Just got back too - went with my baby... Really enjoyed it - although had to watch the entire thing with my hands over her ears because it was so loud. Still - she slept and I thought it was great. The final shot though, the twist I suppose, you knew that was coming from the start!!

^^ Clicky

 

[gaijingirl]

Blimey - you can buy anything these days!!

 

[Cid]

Peltor too, they make the standard aviation ear defenders.

 

[belboid]

Now that was really really excellent. One might have quibbles about specific little bits but overall it was fucking A. Joseph Gordon was superb, that sexy motherfucker. As for the ending - come on, it HAD to be that. Totally total recall and al movies of this ilk.

My only surprise was actually how UNcomplicated it all was, comparatively straightforward, all things considered.

Film of the year so far

 

[The Groke]

Just proves that you can have an epic action blockbuster with some real substance to it.

I hope Michael Fucking Bay et all are weeping into their money piles.

 

[The Groke]

I just adored

Spoiler: good bits

All the zero G stuff (and the "why" of it) - especially as it was nearly all physical effects...they spun entire rooms around on gimbals to get the shots. Just brilliant cinema.

 

[bouncer_the_dog]

it was the mutts nutts

 

[belboid]

I just adored

Spoiler: good bits

All the zero G stuff (and the "why" of it) - especially as it was nearly all physical effects...they spun entire rooms around on gimbals to get the shots. Just brilliant cinema.

spot on, that was all brilliantly done

 

[wayward bob]

*stumbles into thread with hands over eyes*

i love chris nolan, really looking forward to this, just hoping to avoid any spoilers ...

*stumbles back out*

 

[The Groke]

Really didn't seem like 2 and-a-half hours of my time either - just rocketed by.

 

[Sigmund Fraud]

Wow, that was fantastic, sumptuously dense plotting and a neat side stepping of a cheesey ending. On the way out some woman turned on her phone and told her friend 'I'm at the cinema...oh what a load of rubbish, nah, not as good as The Matrix...' ...

 

[Liveist]

I was seriously impressed watching this, great film. I need to go watch it again

 

[Thora]

Just got back too - went with my baby... Really enjoyed it - although had to watch the entire thing with my hands over her ears because it was so loud. Still - she slept and I thought it was great. The final shot though, the twist I suppose, you knew that was coming from the start!!

I went to see it tonight too and my (unborn) baby squirmed and wriggled the whole way through cos of the noise - very uncomfortable

 

[Reno]

I thought it was crap. Sure, the film may be more complex than the average action film and keeping track of all the dreams within dreams is some sort of OCD achivement, but that in itself doesn't make it particularly good. It's a Rubik's cube of a puzzle film that tries to hoodwink audiences into thinking there is more to it than there is, but intellectually, conceptually and emotionally this is paper thin.

The film is endlessly talky. An excellent cast is wasted on forever explaining the convoluted rules of the plot to each other. Nearly all the dialogue is taken up by exposition and there are next to no lines that would enlighten us about the characters we are supposed to care about. The central conceit of the hero being haunted by guilt over a dead wife seems to be de-rigieur now for many an A-list director's vanity project (Solaris, The Fountain and Shutter Island, from which DiCaprio seems to recycle his performance) but there is no emotional weight to any of this, because the film never invests anything in its characters. Not even actors as talented as Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotilliard and the always wonderful Joseph Gordon-Levitt can breathe any life into these cyphers. DiCaprio is at his least interesting when he plays these scrunchy faced, brooding bores he's been saddled with over the last few years.

All of this would be excusable if the film was least visually interesting, but for most of the part it isn't. From the publicity I was expecting something visually wildly imaginative, especially with he concept of people entering dreams, a sort of Fantastic Voyage of the subconscious. Unfortunatly the Escher-style mutating city stuff that's all over the publicity takes up just about a couple of minutes and it barely features in the bog standard action sequences. The rest takes place in what looks like lobbies of office buildings and executive suites in hotels and there are the usual endless overhead shots of high rise buildings you always get with Nolan. The dream world at the deepest level of dreams looks as dull as dishwater, a flatly rendered CGI metropolis. The film never looks or feels like a dream, because Nolan's conception of a man's innermost psyche doesn't extend beyond the look of a 90s action film. There even is a dream level that is a dreary shoot-out on skies, seen in countless spy films. Christopher Nolan still only a middling director of action sequences and there have been any number of Bond films that do this type of much, much thing better.

I really wanted to like Inception, but this is the film that finally sealed it for me that Nolan is the emperors new clothes of Hollywood film-making. Did people want to like this so much that they convinced themselves that this was actually any good ? Inception was preceeded by months of sweaty fanboy hype from the likes of AintItCool (where The Dark Knight is considered the greatest film ever!) and the middle brow press duly followed in their praise like the sheep they are. Don't let them fool you, this is a witless, bloated windbag of a film.

 

[thegonzokid]

Really liked it. Plus that Joseph Gordon-Levitt is hot.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

I thought it was crap. Sure, the film may be more complex than the average action film and keeping track of all the dreams within dreams is some sort of OCD achivement, but that in itself doesn't make it particularly good. It's a Rubik's cube of a puzzle film that tries to hoodwink audiences into thinking there is more to it than there is, but intellectually, conceptually and emotionally this is paper thin.

The film is endlessly talky. An excellent cast is wasted on forever explaining the convoluted rules of the plot to each other. Nearly all the dialogue is taken up by exposition and there are next to no lines that would enlighten us about the characters we are supposed to care about. The central conceit of the hero being haunted by guilt over a dead wife seems to be de-rigieur now for many an A-list director's vanity project (Solaris, The Fountain and Shutter Island, from which DiCaprio seems to recycle his performance) but there is no emotional weight to any of this, because the film never invests anything in its characters. Not even actors as talented as Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotilliard and the always wonderful Joseph Gordon-Levitt can breathe any life into these cyphers. DiCaprio is at his least interesting when he plays these scrunchy faced, brooding bores he's been saddled with over the last few years.

All of this would be excusable if the film was least visually interesting, but for most of the part it isn't. From the publicity I was expecting something visually wildly imaginative, especially with he concept of people entering dreams, a sort of Fantastic Voyage of the subconscious. Unfortunatly the Escher-style mutating city stuff that's all over the publicity takes up just about a couple of minutes and it barely features in the bog standard action sequences. The rest takes place in what looks like lobbies of office buildings and executive suites in hotels and there are the usual endless overhead shots of high rise buildings you always get with Nolan. The dream world at the deepest level of dreams looks as dull as dishwater, a flatly rendered CGI metropolis. The film never looks or feels like a dream, because Nolan's conception of a man's innermost psyche doesn't extend beyond the look of a 90s action film. There even is a dream level that is a dreary shoot-out on skies, seen in countless spy films. Christopher Nolan still only a middling director of action sequences and there have been any number of Bond films that do this type of much, much thing better.

I really wanted to like Inception, but this is the film that finally sealed it for me that Nolan is the emperors new clothes of Hollywood film-making. Did people want to like this so much that they convinced themselves that this was actually any good ? Inception was preceeded by months of sweaty fanboy hype from the likes of AintItCool (where The Dark Knight is considered the greatest film ever!) and the middle brow press duly followed in their praise like the sheep they are. Don't let them fool you, this is a witless, bloated windbag of a film.

You liked Avatar so that means film is amazing!

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Really liked it. Plus that Joseph Gordon-Levitt is hot.

I know someone who's going to see it purely because that Hardy bloke is in it.

 

[Fez909]

Reno: thank you for that review which sums up my thoughts on this film exactly and so saves me the hassle of typing it all out on this phone.

Rubbish, fairly boring film which, it seems, most people loved?? reminded me of the butterfly effect, which I feel harsh comparing it to as that was utter rubbish.

Massive letdown, and a first failure for Nolan.

 

[Kid_Eternity]

Reno: thank you for that review which sums up my thoughts on this film exactly and so saves me the hassle of typing it all out on this phone.

Rubbish, fairly boring film which, it seems, most people loved?? reminded me of the butterfly effect, which I feel harsh comparing it to as that was utter rubbish.

Massive letdown, and a first failure for Nolan.

You've not seen Insomnia? Now that is a terrible film...

 

[The Groke]

I disagree with pretty much everything you have written.

I am not going to bother jousting with you over your opinion of the movie per se - a pointless exercise for both of us as we have made up our minds!



However, I would take exception with this:

Inception was preceeded by months of sweaty fanboy hype from the likes of AintItCool (where The Dark Knight is considered the greatest film ever!) and the middle brow press duly followed in their praise like the sheep they are.

Do you really believe that the utterly laughable "ain't it cool" had (has) any influence over the serious movie press/critics?

Scanning through Rotten Tomatoes shows a few credible dissenters - as there always will be for any widely praised film - but the majority seem to at least "like" it.

You assert that this is just down to mass delusion and the pernicious influence of Aintitcool and that you alone can see the truth?

Don't let them fool you, this is a witless, bloated windbag of a film.

Hmm.

Would you go as far to say that not only do you dislike the film, but you don't even see any value in this as a summer blockbuster over rotten tripe like Transformers 2 or Clash of the Titans, endless gross-out man-baby comedies and Avatar?

 

[Shippou-Sensei]

actually form what i see this kinda feel a bit matrix like

but presumably a hell of a lot better than the later movies

a bit ghost in the shell 2 too

 

[Reno]

I disagree with pretty much everything you have written.

I am not going to bother jousting with you over your opinion of the movie per se - a pointless exercise for both of us as we have made up our minds!



However, I would take exception with this:



Do you really believe that the utterly laughable "ain't it cool" had (has) any influence over the serious movie press/critics?

Scanning through Rotten Tomatoes shows a few credible dissenters - as there always will be for any widely praised film - but the majority seem to at least "like" it.

You assert that this is just down to mass delusion and the pernicious influence of Aintitcool and that you alone can see the truth?






Hmm.

Would you go as far to say that not only do you dislike the film, but you don't even see any value in this as a summer blockbuster over rotten tripe like Transformers 2 or Clash of the Titans, endless gross-out man-baby comedies and Avatar?

Sorry, but I haven't seen Transformers 2 or Clash of the Titans and I never will. Unlike Christopher Nolan, James Cameron at least knows how to shoot and edit an action sequence. In any case, Inception is shit and ultimately I don't care why critics are jizzing all over it. The critics who are, are shit too. Still, I do belive that Internet fanboy hype has become very influential in setting the tone for how films are being received. Not all critics liked it though and the ones I value (Nick Schager at Slate, Andrew O'Heir at Salon) trashed it.

 

[Orang Utan]

my flatmate saw it last night and had pretty much the same opinion of it as reno - he found the endless talky exposition frutstrating. i am going to find out for myself, but i am not a big fan of christopher nolan - he can't seem to tell a story

 

[The Groke]

See, I really didn't think the exposition was that bad! No different to any good "heist" movie, where half the fun is in the planning scenes...

I thought the action scenes were well done and the effects and cinematography excellent!

Funny how we perceive these things so differently.

 

[Orang Utan]

another thing he mentioned was what he felt to be the intrusive soundtrack

 

[The Groke]

another thing he mentioned was what he felt to be the intrusive soundtrack

"BLLLLAAAAAAAAAARRRRRT"

I liked it.

 

[The Groke]

i am going to find out for myself,

It is nothing more than a great action movie all gussied up in an unusually (for the genre) cerebral conceit, but hey - it hit all the buttons and worked for me.

I will definitely be watching it again.

I will say that if you don't really like Nolan's movies, I am not sure that this is going to transcend that for you.