movie – inception

Movie: Inception

I spent a little over a week trying to avoid spoilers for this movie, and was glad I did. This is a movie that has been greatly hyped, and has done well at the box office. It’s a thinking person’s action movie. In my experience, it’s worth paying attention as you watch it, and do what you can to avoid needing to go to the bathroom during the screening.

If you like any of Chris Nolan’s other work (eg Memento, The Prestige, Batman Begins and The Dark Knight), and enjoyed the action of The Matrix, and the thoughtfulness of Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, then you know enough, and it’s time to go and watch the film without reading any further.

This is the rare opportunity to see a film that doesn’t disappoint.

Here are a few thoughts from other people to read after you’ve seen the movie: I managed to avoid most of these before watching it, and enjoyed the movie more for it.

Inception trailer (apple site)
Prequel Comic Book from the official Inception Website.
One take on the real meaning of inception
khoi vinh on inception
Jeremy Keith on the timelessness of inception
Local (Sydney) writer John Lampard on Inception
Video review of Mark Kermode on Inception (part 1) and Mark Kermode on Inception (part 2).
Matt Hodge, who sat next to me at the IMAX, on Inception
Roger Ebert’s review of Inception
Map of the various dreams in the movie (thanks, Chan).

A few issues I had with the movie (minor spoilers ahead):
Joseph Gordon-Levitt looks a lot like Heath Ledger – distractingly so: this broke the spell of the movie for me on a few occasions. I wasn’t a fan of the casting of Ellen Page (Juno) amongst a company of older actors – I know it was a student-prodigy role, but she didn’t seem to fit in properly with the rest of the group. Michael Caine was fantastic, as ever, but barely has any screen time.

There were a few scenes that seemed to drag a little bit – it seemed to get a little lost in the attack on the snow fortress – it was hard to tell who was who, and why they were taking a slow approach to their destination.

That aside, I thought it was a near perfect film: – the emotional arc was rewarding, the relationships between characters were compelling, and the plot was complex enough to give a sense of satisfaction from following it. Not sure yet if I’m going to watch it a second time at the cinema, but I would recommend seeing the biggest screen you can.

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