| ‘INCEPTION’ - review |
| Written by Sian Rafferty |
| Monday, 19 July 2010 15:10 |
 Imagine you are running through a maze. You don’t know what’s at the end; you just know you have to keep running. It’s an intricate thing, like some kind of clockwork, fitting together in an ever complex manner. You reach that final corner, stretch out your hand to open that last door... and everything starts spinning, the whole world flips, churning and twisting, and you don’t even know which way you came from. It’s then you realise that this is something a whole lot bigger than you signed up for, and you haven’t even scratched the surface. Well, welcome to ‘INCEPTION'. Christopher Nolan (director of 'The Dark Knight' and 'Memento') is either the greatest visionary of this century, or simply a man who gets his kicks by stabbing our brains with hot pokers and giving them a good, hard twist. Keeping in this tradition, his new film ‘Inception’ promises to be every bit the mind-numbing conundrum. In a new form of corporate espionage, actives are able to access the dreams of their marks, and with that delve into the vaults of the subconscious. Imagine every secret you said you would guard for a friend, every guilty feeling you ever had, and then imagine these in the hands of someone out to get you. As you can see, this would be a high risk career option, and for skilled thief Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), one which has caused his world to quickly crumble around him. So when he is given the opportunity to get it all back - no matter the cost, no matter the impossibility of the job - he jumps at it.  The team he assembles for the job is the glue which holds this movie together, and there are just so many great faces that crop up. DiCaprio as ‘The Extractor’ - or the one who is ultimately in charge of stealing the ideas - is utterly and absolutely right for this role. There is no other way to put it. And it’s great to see the man, who I always felt maybe took himself a little too seriously, allowing himself the indulgence of stepping away from stone cold reality and into a story which needs a little bit more imagination. Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Cobb’s right hand man Arthur is upright and by-the-books, and his onscreen banter with the smarmy and slightly maniacal Eames (Tom Hardy), definitely makes for some of the more comedic moments in the film. The ladies of the film - Ariadne played by Ellen Page and Marion Cotillard as Mal - serve as two opposite book ends in a film which is largely of the masculine persuasion. Page’s bookish charm and steady conviction with what is good and right, counters the dark fragility which lingers around the unstable Cotillard. Cotillard in particular is captivating as ‘The Shade’ who haunts a broken Cobb. Other familiar faces include his royal highness himself Michael Caine, Irish oddball with eyes like chips of ice Cillian Murphy, and Japanese heavy-weight Ken Watanabe.  It’s a far from perfect film, and sometimes the threads holding the story together do stretch a little thin. Character-wise although, there is a lot to choose from. We never really get to get into the heads of any of them except Cobb, and this leaves us thirsty for a bit more context. Yet, as the basic premise of the whole is so stable and simple - the idea that we can share dreams and access each other’s minds - it means we are more than willing to accept the concept, and step into this surreal world. What it boils down to is this: this is a blockbuster and it does what it’s supposed to do incredibly well. Here, we have slick shifting worlds of limitless opportunity which are incredible to behold. Imagine seas of sky scrapers stretching towards the horizon, imagine moving from Paris to Japan in three footsteps, and imagine completely remodelling a city with the sweep of a hand. This is a movie which breaks all the laws of physics and makes anything possible. And with unbounded imagination, access to any resource, any actor and a near limitless budget... well, you have cinema at its best – pure, unadulterated escapism.  THINGS YOU MOST NEED TO KNOW: Some of the best anti-gravity flights in a long time, and one amazing slow-mo scene of an exploding Parisian street which make the advertisements for Sony or Panasonic televisions with bouncing balls and paint splattered buildings look amateur. HEARTOMETER: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 [ out of 10 ] YOU WILL LIKE, IF YOU LIKE: ‘The Matrix', ‘Batman Begins', and ‘The Dark Knight', ‘Minority Report’ and errr ‘500 Days Of Summer’... for Joseph Gordon-Levitt. FOR MORE: Check out the prequel comic online - ‘The Cobol Job’ - for a spoiler free introduction into the movie HERE. Coup De Main has an everything-you-could-ever-need-guide to 'Inception' HERE.  |
