Written by: Christopher Nolan
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Ken Watanbe
Distributed by: Warner Bros. Pictures
Website: http://inceptionmovie.warnerbros.com
There are two kinds of movie fans out there, those who love Christopher Nolan's work and those who loathe it. For every person who thinks Memento was a storytelling masterclass there is another who thinks it's artsy, overcomplicated drivel. For every person who thinks The Dark Knight is the greatest comic book movie to date, there's another who thinks its an over-hyped, underwhelming pretender to the crown. So do I think Inception is the jewel in an already gem encrusted crown or a mind boggling, insipid turd in a tiara? Sorry to disappoint some of you but it's the former, I am well and truly on board the Nolan band wagon and have been since Memento. Inception stands as his finest effort to date and easily my favorite movie of 2010
Inception follows the story of 'Extractor' Dominic Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) who, after failing a job has the tables turned on him by his mark, Saito (Ken Watanabe), who offers to solve a problem in Cobbs mysterious past that will allow him to return home to his family. The job? To implant an idea into the mind of a recently deceased rival businessman's heir (Cillian Murphy), a fabled procedure known as 'Inception'. Cobb assembles a team trained in dream invasion, Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) recon and intelligence, Eames (Tom Hardy) a master forger, Ariadne (Ellen Page) a dream architect and Yusef (Dilep Roa) a chemist. Easy right? Well no, delving into someones dreams is a risky business and 'Inception', a process most people think is only theoretical, is even more difficult. Add to that the fact that Cobb is hiding his own deep dark secret and to say things get complicated is an understatement.
In a movie that mashes together so many genres, thriller, sci-fi, heist flick, character study and action, some may find it hard to follow or confusing, which is where i think some of the disdain for this flick springs from. I myself didn't have any problems following the story, never really felt out of my depth or confused. Whether or not that has something to do with seeing The Matrix more times than any normal person should I don't know. I do know that, for me at least, I do see some similarities between the two, especially in the scene where Cobb is walking down the street with Ariadne instructing her on how to construct the dream world. It shares a striking resemblance to to the famous scene with Morpheus walking Neo down the street and filling him in on what The Matrix is. Nolan weaves all this together like a master craftsman, where some lesser filmmakers may have become bogged down in the constant plot twists and branching narrative, Nolan manages to deliver a tight, fast paced story that ties all the threads together in a tightly knit bow.
OK so Nolan praising aside, he alone didn't make Inception what it is, in fact nearly everyone involved hits a home run here. From the cast on down to the Han Zimmer score everything just works. I'll be the first to admit that I have never been the biggest DiCaprio fan, no matter how many great flicks he has been in, I could just never get behind him. Here he really makes it work though, as does the rest of the cast. Every performance shines. I could go on an on about how much I love Inception but going back to my first point you're either going to love it or hate it and nothing I say will probably change that so my advice is to just go ahead and check it out for yourself. The less you actually know about this flick going in the better.
Audio/Video:
While I'm not the kind of person who picks at every little visual inconsistency I would point out any glaring faults. Fortunately the transfer here is excellent. The various dreamscapes on offer are filled with bold, vibrant colors. The details are crisp and clean and some of the more common compression problems, grain, noise etc are virtually non-existent. On the audio side Inception is pretty much flawless, a true DTS-HD 5.1 lossless audio track. It sounds amazing.
Special Features:
With around 2.5 hours of supplemental material here they aren't nearly as exhaustive as I would have expected. The biggest blow being the lack of Warner Bros. excellent 'Maximum Movie Mode'. The feature in place of MMM and probably the feature most people will be interested in is "Extraction Mode'. It differs from MMM in that the movie will play and at the end of certain scenes it will pause and the extra features will play then the movie will resume. It's a decent presentation in and of it's self but still seems a little lacking compared to MMM. Incidentally the featurettes included in 'Extraction Mode' can be viewed individually. The rest of the special features are made up of a presentation of Hans Zimmers score, unfortunately shown without any accompanying material, in full. A documentary led by Joseph Gordon-Levitt revolving around the world of dreams. There is also an excellent prequel motion comic showing how Cobb and Arthur came to be employed by Cobol Engineering. The rest of the material is made up of the, by now, standard galleries, info files and trailers. While there may not be much here the overall quality is pretty high and most fans will come away happy.
Not everyone is going to be a fan of Inception we already established that, but those people willing to give it a chance will find an exceptional viewing experience and one that is most definitely unique. For me, and any fan of Nolan or Sci-Fi/thriller/action movies this Inception Blu-ray is a must buy. Only losing points for the limited amount of extras included.
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