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alias_sqbrNon spoilery review: I quite liked it. It was exactly what I was expecting from the trailer, one of those surreal people-going-into-dreams scifi thriller films like Existenz or Paprika but done really really well because it's Christopher Nolan. Nothing in it really stood out as AMAZING though I did really like some aspects, and the characters while often lightly sketched felt fairly real. Nothing really irritated me either, though the race and gender dynamics were a bit off (this is very much the story of a bunch of white guys (really, one white guy) with non-white/POC people almost entirely window-dressing)
Oh and the cast is very pretty. I got slightly bored here and there and when that happened just sat back and watched Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon Levitt being all competent and pretty.
And now some thoughts! VERY SPOILERY.
Only mildly spoilery thought for anyone who got here by accident: as a plain old heist movie it dragged in parts but was mostly pretty effective, especially once you had all the layers of dreams going simultaneously.
And now for the actual spoileryness.
Before we went to this film I said to Cam "I should make a post saying "Spoilers for Inception: it's all a dream!". So yes: the ambiguous ending was EXACTLY what I was expecting. I think the fact this his children and the house look exactly the same and the fact that we cut straight from talking to Saito to the surreal sudden leaving of the airplane is a big sign as well. I'm sure his kids should be older, how long has he been on the run? Personally I think either it's all a dream (which is kind of boring, really, though it does have the advantage of tying up any inconsistencies etc in the film. And any dodgy subtext was just the dreamer's fault!) or what happened was Cobb found Saito, freed him, and then chose to stay in Limbo.
Also, Ariadne, really? So maybe it IS all a dream, hmm. It was certainly...dreamlike in parts, I had no sense of place. Did anyone in France actually speak French at any point?
I liked that there was absolutely no sexual tension between Ariadne (Ellen Page) and Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio). There was only the vaguest "we're busy right now but maybe later" hint of a relationship between Ariadne and Arthur (Joseph Gordon Levitt) but it was enough to show that if she was interested in anyone it was him, and as Cam pointed out to me Cobb very much related to people as if he was a much older character, all grizzled and worn down.
Cobb and his wife's fantasy world was pretty unappealing if you ask me, all those sky scrapers and hardly any trees!
I liked that there were no bad guys, really, and all the characters were basically sensible people. Even Ariadne and Cobb, while in some ways fitting the feisty New Girl and Messed Up Man Escaping His Past archetypes didn't do too many truly frustratingly irrational things for reasons of plot. Fischer (Cillian Murphy) was kind of an antagonist, and his subconscious certainly was, but he came across as a basically decent guy, he certainly tried to help Saito (Ken Watanabe) when he was injured. I have to wonder what will happen to him now they've messed up his head. I liked that the character of Saito got to be more than just the Mysterious Boss but like everyone he was still very much a cipher by the end. The characterisations were subtle but nobody had any texture, no little details that didn't relate to the story.
Oh and the cast is very pretty. I got slightly bored here and there and when that happened just sat back and watched Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon Levitt being all competent and pretty.
And now some thoughts! VERY SPOILERY.
Only mildly spoilery thought for anyone who got here by accident: as a plain old heist movie it dragged in parts but was mostly pretty effective, especially once you had all the layers of dreams going simultaneously.
And now for the actual spoileryness.
Before we went to this film I said to Cam "I should make a post saying "Spoilers for Inception: it's all a dream!". So yes: the ambiguous ending was EXACTLY what I was expecting. I think the fact this his children and the house look exactly the same and the fact that we cut straight from talking to Saito to the surreal sudden leaving of the airplane is a big sign as well. I'm sure his kids should be older, how long has he been on the run? Personally I think either it's all a dream (which is kind of boring, really, though it does have the advantage of tying up any inconsistencies etc in the film. And any dodgy subtext was just the dreamer's fault!) or what happened was Cobb found Saito, freed him, and then chose to stay in Limbo.
Also, Ariadne, really? So maybe it IS all a dream, hmm. It was certainly...dreamlike in parts, I had no sense of place. Did anyone in France actually speak French at any point?
I liked that there was absolutely no sexual tension between Ariadne (Ellen Page) and Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio). There was only the vaguest "we're busy right now but maybe later" hint of a relationship between Ariadne and Arthur (Joseph Gordon Levitt) but it was enough to show that if she was interested in anyone it was him, and as Cam pointed out to me Cobb very much related to people as if he was a much older character, all grizzled and worn down.
Cobb and his wife's fantasy world was pretty unappealing if you ask me, all those sky scrapers and hardly any trees!
I liked that there were no bad guys, really, and all the characters were basically sensible people. Even Ariadne and Cobb, while in some ways fitting the feisty New Girl and Messed Up Man Escaping His Past archetypes didn't do too many truly frustratingly irrational things for reasons of plot. Fischer (Cillian Murphy) was kind of an antagonist, and his subconscious certainly was, but he came across as a basically decent guy, he certainly tried to help Saito (Ken Watanabe) when he was injured. I have to wonder what will happen to him now they've messed up his head. I liked that the character of Saito got to be more than just the Mysterious Boss but like everyone he was still very much a cipher by the end. The characterisations were subtle but nobody had any texture, no little details that didn't relate to the story.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-24 12:25 pm (UTC)I was telling starlady my theory that yes, the whole thing is a dream, in that I think Mall was right and Cobb was wrong, and Mall sent Ariadne in to try and help Cobb get out of his dream, and Cobb basically decided that he didn't want to leave. I think in "the real world" Cobb and Mall don't have children, for example.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-24 12:45 pm (UTC)Wait that makes no sense timewise. Ok, scratch that. But yeah something like that makes sense. I want Ariadne to be real, at least.
And Arthur, he's too pretty to be a figment of Cobb's imaginationno subject
Date: 2010-07-24 01:40 pm (UTC)I read a review that argued that Cobb couldn't be dreaming from the beginning because "you can't dream within your own dream". While there is some evidence to support that (with the person dreaming being the one left behind to 'guard' the others), I don't think there's enough. Of course, even if true, that doesn't negate the Cobb-is-dreaming hypothesis: Cobb states that he can only dream now when he's on the drug that causes dreaming. If he's still in Limbo at the end, then he's still getting there through the drug, and not through dreaming directly.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-26 03:12 am (UTC)The thing is (I say having argued with Cam, who thinks the fact the top fell over at various points proved those moments were real) if it's all a dream then we can't trust anything, including the rules of dreaming. Have you seen Existenz? Not a good movie, but as I recall the way you connect to the virtual reality/dream changes on every level, getting more and more unrealistic and dreamlike as you go. Perhaps the actual mechanism of dream control is very different. MAYBE HE'S IN THE MATRIX :D
no subject
Date: 2010-07-25 02:13 am (UTC)I enjoyed the movie, but I too was concerned with the apparent non-aging of the kids.
I get the feeling that Ariadne was trying to Incept "you can face your demon' to help him get out and that might have been the whole point of the excercise, but I don't know. It was certainly a wild ride.
Um, the colours intensified and stopped being grey and industrial whenever he saw his kids, but that happened during what we definitely knew was the dream sequence too.
One of the better movies I've seen recently.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-26 03:16 am (UTC)Yes, I think that's definitely one logical explanation.
Um, the colours intensified and stopped being grey and industrial whenever he saw his kids, but that happened during what we definitely knew was the dream sequence too.
HMM. I have no idea what that signifies, but it's interesting!
no subject
Date: 2010-07-26 03:39 am (UTC)Dreaming in colour is perceived to be special or more intense. Or it might have been that it was meant to depict reality.
Dunno. Good movie though.
no subject
Date: 2010-07-27 02:25 am (UTC)Hmm. Now I'm pondering if the different layers of dreams had different levels of colour. The snowscape was certainly pretty monochrome, as was much of Limbo.