Inception Elsewhere

Now what’s the point of having a blog and inviting people to read it if you don’t post the occasional film review?

Eh!?

I’m in Elsewhere, they speak like this around here, and I set off down the road, stopped at the Portuguese cafe for a coffee plus and then wandered on a bit more until I came to a wall where I saw this.

Could have been an omen as I was on my way to see Inception.

Now I don’t think much of reviews that tell you at great length what happens in the film so I’ll just say that the message on the wall was pretty appropriate as the film is all about manipulating people’s dreams.

I’m sure if you really need to know more about the plot you can find it so I’ll just tell you something else.

Like the fact that I chose to see the film in non-3d.

I explain partly why here (click) and partly because what I like about watching films is discovering the story, watching the emotions and enjoying character portrayal, none of which are enhanced much by 3-d.

Inception is director Christopher Nolan’s new film, he certainly made The Dark Knight previously and Memento some time before that.

I enjoyed Memento without being swept away and I loved the Dark Knight, even going as far as buying the DVD and adding it to my library (pile on the floor).

So that’s where I’m coming from.

Inception combines the head scratching and what’s going on here? of Memento with the majestic cinematography of The Dark Knight - sweeping confusion with orchestral excitement.

I loved it.

I will go again.

Apparently, when you manipulate other people through their dreams and someone shoots you, you wake up, so if you don’t want to wake up you get sedated on top of asleep and then if you don’t actually want to steal a secret, but leave one instead, it’s a bit more complicated so not only do you need to be sedated but you need to build a dream inside the first dream and probably at least one more inside that one. And anyway things won’t go exactly to plan and you will end up inside someone else’s sub-conscious. Where there might be something you didn’t expect.

That’s the plot by the way.

It’s not scary; my 15 year old daughter did not have to sleep with her feet under her best friend’s afterwards.

It IS confusing – at one point my son, sitting on my right, lent across and asked “why is the man with the moustache trying to kill the guy floating on the ceiling?” I explained and then my wife, sitting on my left, lent across and asked, “Why is the man with the moustache trying to kill the guy floating on the ceiling?”

I missed the next couple of scenes.

Interestingly for a film that is so new and so weird the special effects are not much more advanced than they were in the first of the Matrix films, but I was happy with that as it meant that the story was to the forefront.

Leonardo Diwhatsit is the main actor and basically he is getting more substantial in each film I see him in, mature is the word I believe. Miss Page, I don’t think she is married, who plays the main character in Juno, has a nice role as the architect for the dream, something she has to learn how to do, and therefore continues her portrayal of open innocence.

Michael Caine has a very small part, one and a half scenes really -it’s not enough – I could listen to his voice for ages without loosing interest.

So, was it too confusing? I didn’t think so; I thought it was remarkably consistent in its impossible logic.

Any complaints? Well, the ending, the very, very end was a little clumsy.

What was the message?

Reality, life, is what you make it, don’t have any regrets.

I think.