DVD Review

Inception

Directed by: Christopher Nolan Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Ken Watanabe, Tom Hardy Running Time: 2 hrs 26 mins Rating: PG-13 Due Out: December 7, 2010

PLOT: A team of “dream extractors,” (DiCaprio, Gordon-Levitt, Page, Hardy), those who steal ideas from people’s minds for a living, are hired by an energy company mogul (Watanabe) to do the impossible – plant a destructive idea into the brain of his competitor.

WHO'S IT FOR? This is a sci-fi actioner for attentive viewers – a lack of focus will be your enemy. And the moviegoers who ask questions every five minutes to the person sitting next to them, those evil people will be the true villains of the Inception experience. As for age demographics, this is one of those rare golden action movies that will best be enjoyed by mature thinkers.

MOVIE:

Ever so the architect of his own spectacular action scripts, writer/director Christopher Nolan has constructed for his blessed audience a maze that we can never be happy enough to explore. But through the many mental zig-zags of the landscape of the brain-busy Inception, not only are we guided along with great respect from Nolan’s script (he explains everything to the right amount, in the best ways possible, and doesn’t abandon us to let us figure much of it out on our own), but our eyes feast about spectacular sights to blow our minds, while still trying to collect in our heads the movie’s many ideas. Within this seemingly complex film are beautiful and long sequences, which expand on a viewer’s creativity, yet they remain based in a stunning collection of logic. The ideas of Inception receive an extra layer of awesome when considering how feasible certain actions are, once using the arena of dream logic.

Oddly enough, the weakest aspect of Nolan’s dreamy movie is his handling of typical shootouts. The guns used in these shootouts all sound too cappy, and the actual shooting seems to be completely understated. While his chase sequences are heart pumping (the beautiful reality of an action protagonist actually getting stuck in an alley way is very suspenseful), the gunplay is shockingly typical. This detracts from some of the effect of the third act of this movie, which partially stands as Nolan’s audition to direct a Bond movie some day.

Nolan forgets the basics, and only in that instance, does it actually harm his picture’s goal towards perfection. The rest of Inception stands as wholly original, without seceding to any action clichés, or even slight predictability. Inception very much functions like an action movie, but like the way that The Matrix made us rethink the creative potential of the genre, so does Nolan’s film. One could certainly argue that King Nolan has even more ingenuity running rampant here than in The Matrix, which has now been dethroned from the dignity of being the smartest action movie ever made.

As for the DVD itself? The disc's special features offer only approximately twelve minutes of explanation to the endless questions behind Inception, including those pertaining as to how some jaw-dropping moments of the film came about. Perhaps the Blu-ray package of this film provides more insight into Christopher Nolan's mind and how he put it to celluloid. Here, we have snippets of information about mega moments that occur within the film. If Warner Bros. is holding off larger documentaries for a "special edition," let's hope we don't have to wait until the release of the unconfirmed Inception sequel to have it in our collection.

The brief peeks at the writer/director's elaborate scribblings remind us of what the Inception saga really needs to explode our minds - the published copy ("Inception: The Shooting Script") of the film's screenplay, including all of Nolan's notes that ultimately gave birth to this incredible movie-viewing experience.

MOVIE SCORE: 9/10

EXTRAS

The Inception of Inception The Japanese Castle: The Dream Is Collapsing Constructing Paradoxical Architecture The Freight Train