[pooka]

Anyone seen it yet? I wouldn't call it the greatest gift to this generation, but I thoroughly enjoyed it. Also, I'm not gay, but there is a good chance I wouldn't kick Joseph Gordon-Levitt out of bed. Or Tom Hardy. I'd probably punch Juno though.

[The Final Dakar]

I remember when I saw the trailer I felt like it looked like a special fx film. Considering every impressive effect from the film is in that trailer, I don't feel too far off.

Anyway, I thought the movie was ok, but felt it fell apart after Cillian "creepy" Murphy went into limbo. Also, maybe its because of Shutter Island, but I'm really tired of the crazy wife archetype (or the delusional grief stricken husband).

Still, better than 99% of the shit out there.

[The Final Dakar]

On a side note, I didn't recognize Tom Hardy, but his voice was crazy familiar and drove me nuts. A later exploration of imdb helped me realize why.

 

[sek929]

I just saw it last night and really enjoyed it. I agree with Dakar on the similarities to the (not nearly as good) Shutter Island, and there was a point near the end where it seemed they explained the multiple 'kicks' a bit to quickly to fully understand. The zero-g part shown in the trailer was really fleshed out and was pretty damn amazing.

 

The ending was slightly predictable, that is, if you believed the 'real world' Leo was inhabiting was actually the real world, and not just a construct of Leo's mind.

It is a sign of a good movie when me and my g/f talk about it for hours afterwards, and even as I was going to bed it stuck with me. Even though not a scary movie, the projections all staring at the dream intruders was genuinely creepy.

8.5/10

[The Final Dakar]

I liked Shutter Island more. Inception felt constructed around the premise of showing some incredible things (and to a certain degree Nolan admits to it).

[sek929]

I guess it's the opposite for me. I went into SI thinking it was going to be scary, maybe even just creepy. What I ended up with was a very predictable movie with little to no creepy factor.

Though the overall story was a bit predictable in Inception, the whole movie kept me interested and guessing to the very end. My only gripe is that it needed more Michael Cain.

[Brien]

I saw it on Sunday. I really enjoyed it. It's probably going to tie TS3 as the best movie I've seen this year, unless Tron Legacy turns out to be a masterpiece (which, given the fact they're doing extensive reshoots and having Pixar rework the script, it probably won't be).

 

I enjoy how Nolan constructed the movie so that you're left guessing how much of the movie is "real". It's possible:
1. The entire movie is a dream, and everyone but Dom is fake.
2. Some of the film is real, but Dom never left limbo; Mol was right, and she's still alive. Some go further and say that Mol is in fact trying inception on him, and she is real, and not a projection. Not sure if I agree with that, but it's another theory.
3. The film was real until they get to Mombasa. They never show Dom wake up. He plugs in, and it then cuts to him in a bathroom washing his face.
4. The film was real until Dom goes after Saito; he never wakes up, and the end of the film is his brain turning to pudding.
5. The entire film was real, and the top falls off-camera.

[The Final Dakar]

Shutter Island isn't the type of movie I usually I watch so it wasn't that predictable. And I didn't think it'd be that scary (otherwise I wouldn't have cared to see it). It was Scorcese, anyway, so I would have been surprised if it had been.


What were you trying to guess at in Inception? What nationality Marion Cotillard's accent belonged to each scene?

[sek929]

I just figured that the entire movie had been fairly 'new' in both concept and execution so I really didn't have any preconceived notions about where the movie was taking me.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by sek929 

I just figured that the entire movie had been fairly 'new' in both concept and execution so I really didn't have any preconceived notions about where the movie was taking me.

You were dreaming.

(see what I did there?)

[sek929]

Originally Posted by Brien 

 

I enjoy how Nolan constructed the movie so that you're left guessing how much of the movie is "real". It's possible:
1. The entire movie is a dream, and everyone but Dom is fake.
2. Some of the film is real, but Dom never left limbo; Mol was right, and she's still alive. Some go further and say that Mol is in fact trying inception on him, and she is real, and not a projection. Not sure if I agree with that, but it's another theory.
3. The film was real until they get to Mombasa. They never show Dom wake up. He plugs in, and it then cuts to him in a bathroom washing his face.
4. The film was real until Dom goes after Saito; he never wakes up, and the end of the film is his brain turning to pudding.
5. The entire film was real, and the top falls off-camera.

I'd say number 4 is my guess, with number 2 as a very definite possibility.

As for Scorcese and SI, I was disappointed in the lack of Rolling Stones in the soundtrack.

[sek929]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

You were dreaming.

(see what I did there?)

Like I said, the movie stuck with me. When we are in dreams the impossible is commonplace, and we don't realize we are dreaming until we wake up and see what 'real' reality is. That and lucid dreams too, which I have on a decent basis.

I guess a the movies dealing in dreaming and dreams have been huuuuuge letdowns for me in the past, and this was the first one that delivered.

[The Final Dakar]

4 seems like the obvious choice, with 5 as the next best possibility. If 2 could be shown through subtle clues, I'd be impressed.

[Ghoser777]

I really liked the music - not intricate, but it complemented the action very well.

And I swore Joseph Gordon-Levitt was really Will Wheaton for the whole movie.

[The Final Dakar]

Between it and one of the trailers I felt like they were trying to rip off Batman's score a little too much. (No surprise on Inception, since it was Zimmer)

[RAILhead]

Saw it today. It was pretty good. Zero G fighting was the highlight, IMHO.

As for the end, is was reality because he only wore his wedding ring in his dreams -- and he had no ring at the end.

[lpkmckenna]

I enjoyed the film, although I'm not likely to bother myself with explanatory theories. But it seems impossible that the end was really reality, because we saw that image of the girls many times before. Was Cobb seeing the future or something?

[Shaddim]

2, maybe 4.


I say 4/5 stars. It was good for conversation after, which is rare nowadays.

[The Final Dakar]

[ShortcutToMoncton]

3-3.5/5

I really wanted to like this film, but it's the second time in a row Chris Nolan has let me down. (Give Dark Knight the same score.)

Although it might be better in a re-watch - I didn't catch the wedding ring bit. Although to be honest, that would sort of ruin it for me, because then we'd pretty much have an answer, haha. Not having one is the best part of this movie - the collective "ahhhhhhhh!" from the audience when the movie ended last night was sort of funny. It was a great ending.

Other than that, the rest of the movie was "cool concept" worthy I guess. I dunno. Acting was sub-par - Ellen Page was disappointing in particular. Much like The Dark Knight, it seemed like it needed an extended Director's Cut to fill in the plot. How was Michael Caine involved exactly - I mean, what did he do? He was... some sort of prof? Of... what? Dreaming? Architecture? And how did Page fit in - why was she so good? We're told she was good, but we're given no reference point for it at all. As compared to, what - the fake polyester carpet guy? There really was no reference point for any of this.

And then that gets into the whole plot about (Saito?) and the corporations and stealing secrets and whatnot. None of it seemed very... fleshed out. Like we were being shown cut scenes and then left to fill in the details of how this all came to be, rather than being shown.

Finally, I didn't enjoy the zero-G at all. Sorry. First off, it wasn't very zero-G-like at least to me. The physics were off. Their movements seemed weird. It was fun to watch at first, but seemed more like the later Matrix movies than the first - and if you don't know what I mean there, then you probably don't agree with me, haha.

Anyways, not bad, although not what I'd hoped for. Watched The Prestige last weekend, in anticipation of seeing Inception. That movie is hardly perfect, but IMO it works much better than Inception from a plot perspective - especially when you re-watch it and pick up on the many clues. It'll be interesting to see if the second time through Inception makes it a better movie for me....

greg

[pooka]

I kinda saw a lot of your dislikes as redeeming qualities, but to each his own. And I chuckled at the "The physics were off" line

Could you see the pixels?

[sek929]

I thought the zero-g part was awesome and the lack of annoying and useless character development points more towards the 'whole thing is a dream' aspect. If they culled a bit more of the 'crazy wife' storyline I wouldn't be able to think of many criticisms of the movie.

[The Final Dakar]

I think shortcut is right. the movie felt like a loosely designed plot and characters based around an interesting concept (and visual effects).

[sek929]

My buddy agrees with you guys, he was really bothered by the lack of character development.

Personally, I like the lack of it, since in most movies character development simply equals boring ass flashbacks and useless love stories. Plus the whole movie occurs in the layers within dreams, is what these people do in real life all that important?

[The Final Dakar]

If my grasp of basic movie making is correct fleshed-out characters help viewers invest, making their actions on screen more meaningful (and the experience more engrossing).

For me it wasn't character development that was so lacking (though Page's involvement in the scheme (after walking out in a huff) was quickly explained away as she could never do that in real life), but how justification for the entire scheme hung on whether you believed Ken Watanabe's quick explanation that Cillian "creepy" Murphy would be sitting on a monopoly.

I hate to nitpick the movie because it is better than almost everything else out there, its just I've come to expect better of Nolan. This ranks a few pegs below Memento or The Prestige for me.

[paul w]

It was interesting watching Marion Cotillard and Ellen Page on the screen together. While Ellen is certainly a good and charming actress, Cotillard was so much more everything than her it wasn't even close. She was just mesmerizing and to me hers was the breakout performance of the film.

[The Final Dakar]

Really? I thought she was an annoying generic crazy wife character with a wildly fluctuating accent.

Edit: Considering your location I'm inclined to suspect some Frenchie bias.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Originally Posted by pooka 

And I chuckled at the "The physics were off" line

It seemed to me like in 20 years, we'll look back on it and chuckle in the same way we chuckle at space movies in the 1970s. The movement just seems really fake now.

It seemed that way to me. As though I could "see" that it was probably just some guy jumping around in one spot with a green screen behind him.


Re: plot: well, I guess I'm talking about two separate but related things: development of "the plot," and character development. I thought both were deficient to some degree.

In particular, one of my personal criteria for a good movie is that I can somehow relate to the character(s). You can love them, or hate them, or sympathize for them, or whatever; but I feel that a good movie pulls you into it in that way.

Think of all the great movies you can: isn't that what defines them? Whether it's sci-fi or mob movies or dramas or whatever, they're almost all great because of their characters.

That didn't happen for me in Inception. The only character who wasn't completely 1-dimensional was DiCaprio's. And... I dunno, I just didn't feel that we got enough of him to relate in any way. There was that bit about his wife and kids... but we never actually saw much about the kids, and his wife was a scary psycho bitch half the time. We had some speeches about he was only doing it for his kids... but that wasn't enough to pull me in. Not to mention that there was no antagonist in this movie. Cillian Murphy's character was actually... as likeable as anything else.

Ya feel me? Character development makes great movies. I guess that is my point.

greg

[pooka]

Maybe they were just shades of the real people
*insert groan*

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by pooka 

Maybe they were just shades of the real people
*insert groan*

Actually I seem to remember one person claiming the characters seemed so poorly fleshed out because they were DiCaprio's dream versions, and as he alluded to with his wife, a product of your memories pales in comparison with the real deal.

[paul w]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

Really? I thought she was an annoying generic crazy wife character with a wildly fluctuating accent.

Edit: Considering your location I'm inclined to suspect some Frenchie bias.

I live in New York actually ( haven't changed my location since I lived in France). But even so I never noticed her as an actress really until the Edith Piaf movie. But damn is she good.

Being married to an actual French lady, I thought her accent was fine - I think most Americans don't really know what a French accent really sounds like.

All that said I liked her best. DiCaprio was good too, but in a typical I've-seen-this-before kind of way.

[ShortcutToMoncton]

Also: One thing I've noticed is that I enjoy talking about this movie, more than I enjoyed the actual movie itself.

Hahaha anyone else?

greg

[The Final Dakar]

I was going to comment that you know he did something right if there's this much conversation.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by paul w 

I live in New York actually ( haven't changed my location since I lived in France). But even so I never noticed her as an actress really until the Edith Piaf movie. But damn is she good.

Well French bias didn't mean to infer that you were French, merely that you preferred it. I see I'm not too far off the mark.

Originally Posted by paul w 

Being married to an actual French lady, I thought her accent was fine - I think most Americans don't really know what a French accent really sounds like.

And with me that's reasonable to a degree. I felt like in a lot of her scenes she was masking her accent, but what threw me off was the suicide scene. I'm not well versed in what a distressed French accent sounds like, but her inflections and emphasis seemed to change drastically to me. It sounded drastically different to me.

Originally Posted by paul w 

All that said I liked her best. DiCaprio was good too, but in a typical I've-seen-this-before kind of way.

Don't try to be reasonable. That's not what the internet is for.

[sek929]

The shallow nature of the characters and their willingness to go along (without much haranguing) with Leo is the only thing that makes me consider that the whole movie may take place in Leo's mind entirely. He creates antagonists that end up 'on the team.' People constantly tell him it's to dangerous, never been done, can't be done, etc, yet everyone rather quickly joins up and becomes a part of his scheme.

I can't think of a movie in recent memory that has facilitated so much debate, that's something right?

[Renato]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

c'mon, it's overrated. It could have been so much better...and less boring

[The Final Dakar]

Inception was stolen from Scooge McDuck - What Would Tyler Durden Do

Somehow this makes the movie awesomer.

[sek929]

Thought this was to interesting not to post.

[The Final Dakar]

I've seen it before, and I don't find it all that easy to navigate/useful. Just like your face.

[Stogieman]

Yeah, Dakar prefers his timelines to be easy. Just like his women.

[Ghoser777]

Originally Posted by The Final Dakar 

I've seen it before, and I don't find it all that easy to navigate/useful. Just like your face.

It's not rocket science. The left side of the picture shows the different kicks, and the right side shows the different levels of dreaming.

Kick 1 (falling off the building) was the kick in Cobbs dream (the fourth level of dreaming)
Kick 2 (exploding building) was the kick in the snow world (third level)
Kick 3 (elevator) was the kick in the hotel (second level)
Kick 4 (van) was the kick in the hostage-taking world (first level)

It also clearly states whose dream each stage belongs to, and what role each character had in the story (bottom side).

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by Ghoser777 

It also clearly states whose dream each stage belongs to, and what role each character had in the story (bottom side).

All the dreams belong to Fischer. I don't see how staying behind to cause a kick makes a dream "yours".

[Ghoser777]

You have to compartmentalize things a little better. They never enter a Fischer dream. In the real world, they all start a shared dream with Yusuf being the "host dreamer" (so it's his dream) and Fischer as the subconscious that populates the dream (hence the defense guys). Yusuf stays in that first level of the dream (the van), probably because you can't actually host two levels of dreams at the same time, and so makes sense as the guy to set off the kick to wake everyone else up from the next level.

Arthur is the host dreamer for the next level, but Fischer is still the subconscious that is populating the world. Then Eames is the host dreamer, and finally Cobb hosts a level.

[The Final Dakar]

I don't think compartmentalize is the word you're looking for. You can try to fault me for not understanding the movie completely from one viewing, but my lack of understanding doesn't have to do with compartmentalization.

[The Final Dakar]

I mean if I were a dick I'd make some kind of tedious discussion of who retains ownership of a dream: The person who creates the backdrop or the person who populates it and makes it alive.

[Ghoser777]

"Compartmentalize" was exactly what I meant... before I rewrote my post five or six times. To be concise, I meant that you have to separate the different roles (subconscious target, host dreamer, co-dreamers) instead of combining them.

Not calling you a dick, but I'll respond to your hypothetical: the person who makes the "backdrop" (which I take for you to mean is the scenery) is always the architect. How the "magic" sleeping machine enables this, I don't know (it's never addressed in the movie). The person who populates the world is never the host dreamer - that person is always the owner of the subconscious that is being invaded.

[The Final Dakar]

Originally Posted by Ghoser777 

"Compartmentalize" was exactly what I meant... before I rewrote my post five or six times. To be concise, I meant that you have to separate the different roles (subconscious target, host dreamer, co-dreamers) instead of combining them.

Ok, gotcha.

Originally Posted by Ghoser777 

Not calling you a dick, but I'll respond to your hypothetical: the person who makes the "backdrop" (which I take for you to mean is the scenery) is always the architect. How the "magic" sleeping machine enables this, I don't know (it's never addressed in the movie). The person who populates the world is never the host dreamer - that person is always the owner of the subconscious that is being invaded.

I'll leave it at that. I think I have some good reasoning, but it doesn't really matter...

[The Final Dakar]

DIsturbing yet hilarious.

Edit: Heh, the image address apparently sets off the censors here.

[downinflames68]

I liked this movie a lot, it was one of the most interesting ones I'd seen in a while. On top of that... the idea of people no longer in your life invading your dreams... is very real to me. And I have pretty intense dreams... so... that part really hit home as well. I wish more movies were as good as this one was.