Meh, I just finished watching Inception for the first time and was totally disappointed. I love slick, intelligent thriller movies. My favorite director is David Fincher, my favorite film is probably Collateral. So with that in mind, I have watched Inception and looked up a few of the more obscure details (wedding ring, the sound you hear at the end of the credits), and I still don't think it's deep at all. Without the acting, I don't know if I could recommend this movie. It's The Score or Ocean's Eleven inside dreams. That's about all we have going on here.
Also, why so many dream levels? No, I'm not asking from a plot perspective, but from a "writing the script" or "directing" perspective. Why are all the dream levels so similar? Why are the threats all consistent in an environment we know is changeable? Yeah, I know, we have to make dreams feel to the viewers like it could be reality. But it's not. It's fairly obvious what's real and what isn't, because crazy crap starts happening anyway (level 4 and the "real" world are the only two environments that feel like they even MIGHT be real). So if you were going to HAVE the crazy anti-gravity nonsense, you should realize the illusion is ALREADY spoiled, and go for the emotional big guns (dreams are way more creative than the way this movie portrays them). Sometimes I think the film is understated in ways that directly harm the dramatic impact of the story. The last act was good, but much of the action in the second act felt unnecessary. I just wasn't invested.
Also, DiCaprio can be a much better actor than he was here. He wasn't great in The Departed, but I thought his performance was still more convincing than in Inception.
Probably the funniest thing about Inception is that the most creative and effective dreamlike environment we ever see is the dream test at the beginning. I wish we could have had 2012-influenced, Bizarro world disasters and crazed mobs during the actual proper story, rather than when Cobb and the blank slate feel like playing in their dreamy little sandbox, or when Ken Watanabe is jerking Cobb around.
Also, why so many dream levels? No, I'm not asking from a plot perspective, but from a "writing the script" or "directing" perspective. Why are all the dream levels so similar? Why are the threats all consistent in an environment we know is changeable? Yeah, I know, we have to make dreams feel to the viewers like it could be reality. But it's not. It's fairly obvious what's real and what isn't, because crazy crap starts happening anyway (level 4 and the "real" world are the only two environments that feel like they even MIGHT be real). So if you were going to HAVE the crazy anti-gravity nonsense, you should realize the illusion is ALREADY spoiled, and go for the emotional big guns (dreams are way more creative than the way this movie portrays them). Sometimes I think the film is understated in ways that directly harm the dramatic impact of the story. The last act was good, but much of the action in the second act felt unnecessary. I just wasn't invested.
Also, DiCaprio can be a much better actor than he was here. He wasn't great in The Departed, but I thought his performance was still more convincing than in Inception.
Probably the funniest thing about Inception is that the most creative and effective dreamlike environment we ever see is the dream test at the beginning. I wish we could have had 2012-influenced, Bizarro world disasters and crazed mobs during the actual proper story, rather than when Cobb and the blank slate feel like playing in their dreamy little sandbox, or when Ken Watanabe is jerking Cobb around.
