Movie Review: INCEPTION (with a little Twilight, Predators, The A Team and The Kids Are All Right)

In case you were wondering where I’ve been, let me explain: It’s not that I have been staying home, avoiding the movie theater, it’s that I have been incredibly uninspired. From the time I reviewed Toy Story 3 (which I loved), I have seen: The Twilight Saga: Eclipse, Predators, The A Team and The Kids Are All Right. I could not bring myself to review any of them. I'm a busy woman and none seemed worth the effort. The Kids Are All Right was alright but what can I say, I was not inspired and if I'm not...I'm not. Luckily for me, this is all just for fun.

Obviously, there is a world full of people who love the Twilight movies. I enjoyed the first but the last 2 were so insipid, I could not wait for them to end. I don’t get it. I loved the books. They are hot and steamy and play into some of my favorite subjects: love, longing and vampires. I am totally captivated by the notion of vampires. Ever since I was a young girl, many many years ago, when I saw Béla Lugosi (Dracula) sink his teeth into Helen Chandlers’ neck, I was sold and perhaps, a little tainted. But the Twilight movie series somehow manages to circumvent what the books seem to capture; all the lust and longing, insecurities and competitiveness of adolescents. OK....maybe it's got the competitive thing down.

Predators (staring Adrian Brody) was well acted but a big mess of a movie that has no point and goes nowhere. Although many have tried (Predator 2, Alien vs Predator – Requiem and now this), movie makers have not been able to replicate the campy yet truly scary, 1987 production of Predator. Directed by John McTiernan and written by Jim and John Thomas, the film had the advantage of being unique as well as having Arnold Schwarzenegger in the lead role. How do you top that? A bit of trivia: The original Predator starred Schwarzenegger and Jesse Ventura. Both went on to become state Governors. Who would have guessed that when the movie came out? Nobody!

The A Team is a movie you couldn't care less about. You never get involved with any of the characters so you never care about what they are doing. It’s actually amazing because there is plenty going on. Some of the dialogue is unintelligible. If I was interested, I would have wanted subtitles even though it's in English - I think.

OK, on to Inception, the latest and very exceptional movie from director Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight), repeatedly screws with you even while it is telling you exactly what is going on. Exposition, often the sign of a weak screenplay, works here and is actually a welcome relief in what would have otherwise been a story too complicated to follow. Nolan, who also wrote the film, has come up with this incredibly fascinating idea: A team of dream infiltrators are able to enter a person’s subconscious to not only steal ideas, but possibly plant one. Because most of the film’s action takes place in dreams, visually, anything is possible. This gives Nolan free range. He has created a visual masterpiece that is also remarkably intelligent and clever.

Leonardo DiCaprio, who plays Cobb, leader of the dream raiders, is so talented you never question the plausibility of what is going on. He is always capable of bringing you right into a movie, no matter how farfetched – a gift any actor would die for. His team, which includes Joseph Gordon-Levitt (500 Days of Summer) an ingenious casting choice, has had some pretty wild adventures, running around in people’s brains looking for an idea that somebody has paid them to steal. Much to their surprise, one of their proposed victims, Saito (the always great but who has now reached new heights of greatness, Ken Watanabe) has actually set them up to see if they are any good.

When Saito is satisfied with what he sees, he hires the team to enter the dreams of Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy – Red Eye, 28 Days Later), his corporate rival with the intent of planting an idea in his head that could topple Fischer’s business empire, and consequently, Saito’s competition. Cobb hires a whiz kid architect, Ariadne (Ellen Page), to help design a multi-tiered dream world that will enable the team to implant an idea deep in the recesses of Fischer’s mind. Cobb and company don’t just go into Fischer’s subconscious, they go three layers deep. They find themselves running around inside a dream within a dream within a dream.

At this point in the evolution of cinema, Nolan is blessed in that the special effects he can employ are synched up masterfully with his outrageous imagination. When Cobb walks Ariadne through a dream, explaining the physics of the subconscious, city streets fold upwards and on top of one another in jaw-dropping fashion. When Levitt’s character finds himself in hand-to-hand combat within a dream, he must do so in a weightless atmosphere because he’s flying through the air in a van shooting off a bridge in his sleeping state—or one of his sleeping states, because his body is actually sleeping in a dream. Oh brother, my head hurts.

Cobb is haunted by the memories of his wife, Mal, (the amazing Marion Cotillard, Academy Award winner for her portrayal of Edith Piaf in La Vie En Rose), who has a way of showing up in the dream world and wreaking continuous havoc. The Cobb and Mal sub plot is infinitely clever and brings tremendous heart to this film.

DiCaprio anchors all of the insanity with a performance that is skillfully grounded and moving. He gets to play an action hero, as Nolan presents sequences that have an almost James Bond/Ethan Hunt-like twist to them. He also gets to play a tragic-romantic figure in his scenes with Cotillard, scenes that contain high-octane emotional strength. He’s an acting marvel for the second time this year (first was Shutter Island).

The supporting cast, including Page and Gordon-Levitt, who performed a lot of his own stunts, are just too good. Also along for the ride are Tom Barringer (who is almost unrecognizable due to the aging process:) and Michael Caine as the man who has taught Cobb all he knows about dreamscapes. Lukas Haas as Cobb’s original dream architect is a character who possibly plays an even bigger part after he physically exits the film.

Inception sounds insane, and it is. But at its core it is simply a good old-fashion heist movie This is one of those puzzle films that’s hard to follow at times, a twisted tale that works. It’s unbelievable to me that Nolan had the brainpower to dream this up. His imagination seemingly has no boundaries. See it and see it in a movie theater. The special effects, and there are many, will loose their impact on a TV screen. Do not see this movie if you are: tired, fighting with your significant other, pre-occupied, drunk or hung-over. You won't get it. Plenty of people walked out of the theater saying "WTF". But if you really pay attention, you will have a lot of fun and be very amazed when you "wake up" at the end.

p.s. The song played to wake the sleeping/dreaming characters in the movie is Edith Piaf’s, "Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien" ("No Regrets"), one of the many songs Marion Cotillard brilliantly lip syncs in La Vie En Rose. A movie, by the way, not to be missed.