Sidewalks On The Corner

You would figure movies like “The Matrix” trilogy, “Total Recall” and the television series Lost would be some of the most complex viewing experiences around. Well, you'd be wrong. “The Dark Knight’s” Christopher Nolan directs the mind bowing sci-fi film “Inception” with satisfying results.

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INCEPTION
Warner Bros. Pictures / Legendary Pictures
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for sequences of violence and action throughout.
URL: www.inceptionmovie.com

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Ken Watanabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger, Michael Caine
Directed by: Christopher Nolan
Screenplay by: Christopher Nolan
Produced by: Christopher Nolan, Emma Thomas
Executive Produced by: Chris Brigham, Thomas Tull

Studio Synopsis:
Acclaimed filmmaker Christopher Nolan directs an international cast in “Inception,” an original sci-fi actioner that travels around the globe and into the intimate and infinite world of dreams.

Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is a skilled thief, the absolute best in the dangerous art of extraction: stealing valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious during the dream state when the mind is at its most vulnerable. Cobb’s rare ability has made him a coveted player in this treacherous new world of corporate espionage, but it has also made him an international fugitive and cost him everything he has ever loved. Now Cobb is being offered a chance at redemption. One last job could give him his life back but only if he can accomplish the impossible—inception. Instead of the perfect heist, Cobb and his team of specialists have to pull off the reverse; their task is not to steal an idea but to plant one. If they succeed, it could be the perfect crime.

But no amount of careful planning or expertise can prepare the team for the dangerous enemy that seems to predict their every move. An enemy that only Cobb could have seen coming.

This summer, your mind is the scene of the crime.

(L-r) DILEEP RAO as Yusuf, TOM HARDY as Eames, JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT as Arthur, LEONARDO DiCAPRIO as Cobb, ELLEN PAGE as Ariadne, and KEN WATANABE as Saito in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ sci-fi action film “INCEPTION,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release.
Photo by Stephen Vaughan.

J.P.'s Take:
Instead of calling this film “Inception,” for the moment, I’m going to call it by a more appropriate title “Onion.” Its multi-layered script leaves you just as disoriented as the main character. Allow me to peer into your mind as I try to explain. In the dream state where our minds are at is most vulnerable; we are open to suggestion. The stage of lucid dreaming (you can Wiki that later) leaves us susceptible to ideas. “These ideas can grow like a virus in the mind,” as Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) states in the movie. This causes a chain reaction of life changing event for the dreamer. In the future, surreal new forms of cooperate espionage have paved the way for master thieves, such as Cobb. A thief of thought, Cobb is an “extractor,” who is hired to steal cooperate secrets from his competition, the Fischer Empire. These secrets aren’t stolen in the conventional way, instead a process called extraction, which is the art of entering someone’s dreams in order to search for info that’s performed like a symphony. But rather than just extract an idea, Cobb is asked to plant one. He is known as one of the best at conducting this well orchestrated, mind invasion. Cobb is capable of retrieving even the deepest of thoughts and ideas from someone’s mind.

To complete this dangerous heist, however, he must assemble a team of specialists, whom all have their roles in this little mind game.

Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt): He finds a “point man,” who has the pain-staking task of researching a “mark,” the person that they are extracting the information from. In this case “The Mark” is Robert Fischer, Jr. (Cillian Murphy), heir to the Fischer business empire.

Ariadne (Ellen Page): she’s an “architect;” who is responsible for constructing the labyrinth of within a dream world for which “The Mark” and the pre-designed ideas created for him/her will live. Coincidentally, in Greek Mythology, Ariadne is the daughter of King Minos of Crete. She came to Theseus’s rescue as he was trying to escape the Minotar’s Maze. Hmmm.

“The Chemist” is Yusuf (Dileep Rao), like an anesthesiologist, who mixes the right percentage of chemicals to place the team in a sleep state in order to enter the dream.

The “Forger” is Eames (Tom Hardy), a member of the team who impersonates a specific target like a chameleon, which means he takes on specific physical appearances in the dream to draw out the mark.

Lastly, you have “The Tourist” Saito (Ken Watanabe), the client that hires the team and tags along for the ride in completing this mission.

It certainly sounds mind bending, but Christopher Nolan, who also wrote the script, burrowed a way through the rabbit hole for us to grasp the idea. I found the scenes where the team assembles to construct such a surreal event highly intriguing. Just like in the film, “Ocean’s Eleven,” it’s the same as if they were planning a complex heist. The team designs every detail and pays close attention for realism in order keep the dream from falling apart. Dates, times, locations, and everyday routines are carefully implanted, so that “The Mark” experiences the situation as a normal dream ~ and they all make it sound so serious as if they’re actually doing this for real.

(L-r) JOSEPH GORDON-LEVITT as Arthur and LEONARDO DiCAPRIO as Cobb in Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ sci-fi action film “INCEPTION,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release.
Photo by Stephen Vaughan.

The film works -- thanks in part to the cast, who are presenting the boggling material with stern confident voices. They keep this film as a whole from falling apart. For instance, I enjoyed the scene when Cobb, like a Zen Buddhist Master, explains to his new teammate Ariadne that she must construct a world within a world to keep the dream alive and to make it real you must keep your mind free of your own personal thoughts. She has to keep the purity of the lie going for “The Mark” to take hold of what’s being planted in his mind. In other words, she must create a diversion to throw Fischer’s bodyguards (of the dream world) off guard so the team can sneak into his mind like a vault. Again, if you understand how heist films are put together, you really wouldn’t much trouble picking up “Inception,” because it plays out just the same way.

The spiraling, yet engaging sub-plots also seem to work pretty well. As the team prepares to enter the mind of the young tycoon Robert Fischer, Cobb must come to terms with the death of his wife, Mallorie “Mal” Cobb (played by the very attractive Marion Cotillard), who appears within the dream. Buried deep within Cobb’s thoughts are his emotions for his late wife, which starts to seep into the project and is corrupting the delicate world they have created. So, with the team’s mission and adding Cobb’s dead wife into the mix -- that’s a whole other layer of story telling in itself. Wow! O.K., my head hurts.

Personally, I wonder how Nolan kept from going bonkers when writing this, because the continuity is pretty tight.

(L-r) LEONARDO DiCAPRIO with Director CHRISTOPHER NOLAN on the set of Warner Bros. Pictures’ and Legendary Pictures’ sci-fi action film “INCEPTION,” a Warner Bros. Pictures release.
Photo by Melissa Moseley.

On a different note, another interesting aspect of this movie is that a lot of the concepts here are based on science fact. Don’t worry … I’m not going to recite chapter and verse of the formulation of dreams, or how we can remember them then reconstruct them later on. But in actuality, there are ways we can influence our dreams, for which we supposedly have some control over things that happen within them. It’s in the state of lucid dreaming, as I mentioned above, that we could apply that control. I know as I write this confusing review, “Inception” really isn’t all that far-fetched. All that separates the fact from fiction here is the method in which Nolan chose to convey the story.

Although the story was well written, I couldn’t help feeling like its many layers suffocated the movie. Midway through, the movie was smothered by the many dream sequences, as we were shuffled back and forth between them. You weren’t really sure which dream you should believe. Of course, that is on purpose. Even from the beginning, the audience was quickly whisked away to an opening sequence of events that were the very start of a dream invasion. After a while, I felt like I was trapped in the endless dimensions.

The subtle special effects are very impressive. I didn’t feel like they were over bearing, yet they were still just as mind bending as the story. I especially enjoyed the sequences, which took place in a hotel. The characters float around the building as if gravity didn’t exist. They were crawling up the side of walls and on the ceiling better then Spider-Man. Other impressive moments include the dream sequences with the ever-shifting scenery. The buildings and streets folded like origami and the landscape kept transforming as if they jumped out of a pop-up book.

To be honest there is so much happening here that I find it nearly impossible to write an adequate review to sum things up. So, for that reason, I’m recommending this film to those willing to sit through the two and half hour running time just to get to the end. I, for one, enjoyed watching this film, and I was engrossed enough to want to see it through to the end. You may have to watch this film a second or even a third time, just to understand all the details and the parts that you may have missed. Why this film worked is because it caused the audience to question realities and how we relate to our world around us. Can we change things? Can we influence the shape of things to come? I can assure you, the ending will leave you even more intrigued.

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J.P. Langston is a member of "Sidewalks Entertainment" team primarily as a videographer. He loves movies, especially sci-fi horror and action comedies. Some of his favorite films include "Blade Runner" "The Matrix Trilogy," The (original) "Star Wars," "Equilibrium," "Serenity," "Kill Bill Vols 1 and 2," "Appleseed," "Unbreakable" and "Sin City." He has a large DVD collection, which is still growing. Since reviewing films for "Sidewalks," he has been expanding his palette for all types of films.