REVIEW: Is Inception This Year's Masterpiece? Dream On
If the career of Christopher Nolan is any indication, we've entered an era in which movies can no longer be great. They can only be awesome, which isn't nearly the same thing.
In Inception, Nolan does the impossible, the unthinkable, the stupendous: He folds a mirror version of Paris back upon itself; he stages a fight sequence in a gravity-free hotel room; he sends a train plowing through a busy city street. Whatever you can dream, Nolan does it in Inception. Then he nestles those little dreams into even bigger dreams, and those bigger dreams into gargantuan dreams, going on into infinity, cubed. He stretches the boundaries of filmmaking so that it's, like, not even filmmaking anymore, it's just pure "OMG I gotta text my BFF right now" sensation.
Wouldn't it have been easier just to make a movie?
But that urgent simplicity, that directness of focus, is beyond Nolan: Everything he does is forced and overthought, and Inception, far from being his ticket into hall-of-fame greatness, is a very expensive-looking, elephantine film whose myriad so-called complexities -- of both the emotional and intellectual sort -- add up to a kind of ADD tedium. This may be a movie about dreams, but there's nothing dreamlike or evocative about it: Nolan doesn't build or sustain a mood; all he does is twist the plot, under, over, and back upon itself, relying on Hans Zimmer's sonic boom of a score to remind us when we should be excited or anxious or moved. It's less directing than directing traffic.
Nolan's aim, perhaps, is to keep us so confused we won't dare question his genius. The movie opens with Leonardo DiCaprio being washed up on a beach somewhere -- mysteriously, there are two little blond children cavorting around, though we can't see their faces. Then some Japanese soldiers drag him into a menacing-looking seaside castle nearby. Then he sits down at a table, opposite some mysterious old guy, and proceeds to eat some gruel. What, you might ask, is going on here, as bits of runny porridge drip from the haggard-looking DiCaprio's lips? You're supposed to be perplexed -- it's all part of the movie's puzzly-wuzzly structure.
Before long we learn that DiCaprio's character is an "extractor," meaning he's a skilled craftsman who can enter others' dreams to draw out valuable information, useful, particularly, in corporate espionage. His name is Dom Cobb -- which is, I guess, better than being called Com Dobb -- and not only does he have the ability to enter others' dreams; he actually builds those dreams, with the help of his number-two man, Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), plus an architect, who had better know what he or she is doing. The architect working for Cobb at the beginning of the movie (he's played, all too briefly, by Lukas Haas) meets a bad end after installing the wrong kind of shag carpeting in an important dream. Perhaps these dreams need interior decorators, too, to prevent future faux pas, but let's not get off-track.
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No one knows if any of this is real or just a dream--or a dream within a dream within a dream. I wear the mask of a man "playing" a movie critic named "David Edelstein" sending words into cyberspace on the subject of a movie in which dreams are more real than life. Does anything of this make sense? Direct your queries to PTravers@rollingstone.com
Except for you haven't seen the movie yet. This review is hardly convincing to someone who was able to follow the plot. It sounds like the reviewer got lost, decided she wanted to blame her lack of understanding on the filmmaker rather than her own dim wit, and decided to twist the positives onscreen into silly-sounding negatives.
I saw the movie. It WORKS. The plot isn't overwhelming. The characters are very well-drawn. The set-pieces are huge, sure, but that's the point of this one- Nolan has made an artful, artistic blockbuster, which there hasn't been in a very long time.
That is just too dumb enough!
I'm right with ya on all counts! And for the record, can't we wait until the movie has actually had it's general release on Friday? While advanced reviews by critics are always welcome, I hate all the cool kids that got to go to a screening beforehand and can't stop blabbing about it like the rest of us have already had the weekend to see it. This is still America right?
I give the new layout a 3, but maybe I'm just too dumb enough to figure it out too.
But they just changed the entire lay-out just for you...
"But he does have a phony streak."
Memento, Insomnia, Batman Begins, The Prestige, The Dark Knight. Definitely phony.
And this review is written by another person trying to jump on the hate bandwagon. It doesn't make you look cool. It makes you look like a hack looking for hits ala Armond White. That and you are apparently too dumb to understand Nolan's movies, when they aren't really THAT difficult to follow.
I'd love to go bowling with YOU, Stephanie.
Haha you dumbass. It was a trick.
could someone please explain what in god's teeth this means: "stretches the boundaries of filmmaking so it's not even, like, filmmaking anymore." It's one of the most ridiculous assertions, with that displaced like to infer that the writer isn't even certain of what it means.
secondly, while disliking the movie is one thing, to assert that nolan's films aren't full of good performances or demands on actors is just utter horseshit. Guy Pearce and Carrie Anne Moss in Memento, Al Pacino and an unreal Robin Williams in Insomnia, Heather Ledger's oscar winning performance...
Then again, this is someone who would recommend The Last Airbender, Price of Persia, Jonah Hex over Wall-E, The Dark Knight, etc. That isn't necessarily wrong, it just reeks of bad taste.
But if Movieline wanted a troll for pageviews, they definitely got one.
Such a BS review. Laughable.
OK, I haven't seen the movie yet, and I won't be able to until Friday. I find it hard to believe that this movie is really worth 3 out of 10, which is damn near Ed Wood levels, but you never know.
The trouble isn't that this critic has an opinion which may or may not be correct. The problem is the whole tone of the article - from 'why not just make a movie already, instead of trying anything ambitious' to the snide little digs at Nolan's competence, to the waffle that is reminiscent of no one so much as Armond White.
You want people to come to the site, Movieline? Get a crew of writers whose opinions people can respect, whether they agree with them or not. There are roughly 100000000 websites out there with smartarse writers who think they're much cleverer and funnier than they actually are, and you're heading towards becoming just another one of them.
I like this site. Please don't screw it up.
I saw a screening of Inception a few days ago, and let me just say, I don't agree with you. This film was incredible, it was truly a mind-f*ck in the best sense of the word. Everyone played their roles superbly; the storyline was ingenious in that it was different, it was thought-provoking and it was awe-inspiring. The visuals were mind-blowing, the cinematography was incredible, and the score only added to the piece as a whole. Never have I been so enthralled by a film, and that's saying something considering that I am an actor myself and I tend to pick performances and screenwriting apart. Christopher Nolan really outdid himself with this film and while it is not my intention to demean your critique, I have to say that you missed the mark.
Blah to this review. That is all.
Ive been ammusingly checking out this chicks movie reviews for the last year or so, via EW weekly (she used to do reviews for salon.com, and the would post her reviews and like 6 other reviewers) - and even though i really support wholeheartedly the right to express ones opinion on any given movie (or music artist, author, etc), she has time and time again given movies EVERYONE ELSE AT LEAST LIKES (not necessarilyloved) bad reviews. Its hilarious. It screams of "Look at me, im different!" give me a break. And this review screams of "i didnt understand it, so it must just be a bad movie". RIDICULOUS. Im sure she would give Godfather II a C+ and say something like "this films plot is poorly put together, the acting is marginal, and the idea is not original at all". Get a job selling cars Stephanie, reviewing movies is just not for you.
A-sourpuss-reviewer-of-minimal-credibility-trying-to-score-cheap-website-hits-by-trashing-a-movie-widely-adored-by-critics says what?
I thought the review was well written, well argued, and made sense. Still I might go see the movie anyway just to see what all the hoo ha is about. But I have to say the tone of the comments is kind of creepy. The general message seems to be: How dare this reviewer not love a movie I adored or even dumber how dare this reviewer not love a movie other critics really liked--although that remains to be seen I think.
Diversity of taste makes life reasonably interesting or so some of us like to think, apparently not too many in this crowd though. As for the tired all refrain that SZ hates all movies other critics love--just to be ornery apparently-- read her review of "The Kids Are All Right." It's a rave, thank heaven, because being independent of mind seems to be the worst of all possible sins.
So...all the new faces lured here by the purdy new layout or Stephanie lambasting a film they haven't even seen yet? I'm not a gambling man, so I don't wanna speculate.
It scares me how clueless reviewers like Stephanie and David Edelstein are.
As others have already said...If you aren't smart enough to understand the movie, say so in the review.
Just because you'd rather watch fascinating examples of cinema like Jonah Hex, The Last Airbender (basically movies written for the intellect of a child or average southerner) doesn't mean you should have the ability to influence the success of this movie.
Mr. Edelstein, I need your help. No matter how much I try, I can't help but love Inception. I've tried and tried to dislike it. I tell myself, "How can it be a great movie if Mr. Edelstein doesn't like it? I mean, Mr. Edelstein is clearly the superior being. His words reach beyond opinion. His words are truth!" But I just can't help it. I love Inception. I must be a blind moron.
Here's Stephanie's brilliant take on The Dark Knight...which of course she hated!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FDZztZTLPiE
Oh my god. I thought that was the most poorly written and ignorant review I'd ever encountered (and I sift through Rotten Tomatoes all the time.) But then I watched her take on the Dark Knight, and now it's a tie. DK Visually incoherent? Christ, they are just movies, it's not brain surgery, but you don't seem to understand them very well. You say you don't understand why 'comic book fans don't demand more' from the visual side of a film's storytelling? You have no idea what you are talking about, and that you (I'm assuming) get paid to talk anyway, it's sad to see your false confidence as you try to talk semi-intelligently and fail utterly.
Wow. That was bad. Inception. You wrote (ooh what a sound bite) "Wouldn't it have been easier just to make a movie?" Oh lord. Even if you had any sort of logical objective point, aren't there already enough 'movies'? Can't someone do anything else without you at the gate saying don't go further than this, folks? I suppose if you were reviewing Sgt. Pepper in 1967 you would have asked "Wouldn't it have been easier just to make a pop record?" Oh god help us all.
To fans of this site, independence of mind isn't the worst all possible sins -- though it could well be a substantial one, if many people here JUST NEED for certain beloved films to get the near 100% scores on Rotten Tomatoes or some such: vastly greater, in my judgment, would be to be the new chief critic of a site and espouse views on films which near explicitly "argue" that something is substantially wrong in the majority of people who regularly come here. Not just that your aesthetic sense is shallow, ill-informed, misdirected, in need of correction and work, that is, but that something about your core-self, your constitution, is rotten, making you beyond reform and more like a (future) stain on the earth.
Stephanie assessed "Dark Knight" as a "grim, predigested banquet." But if you went for it, it isn't so much that your TASTES were different from hers, but that your soul was / is. You fell in love with, obsessed over, found deep meaning / comfort in, processed food: the essential 3 /10 here assessed the movie as much as your evolution as a human being. I'm sure Stephanie herself would say (at least in person) that you're just of different tastes, that her opinion is simply her own, that it just didn't move HER -- as if you'd just shown yourself to be a laid-back west-coast "gal" while her own affinity lies to the east: but you can't read her criticisms of films like "Dark Knight" or the Star Wars saga (exempting "Star Wars" [to some extent] and "Empire" [entirely]) and not fairly judge, that though her sites are on the films, that looking back and a glance she hasn't seen you and recognized you as flies on shit.
Some of us who admire Stephanie's work wondered how this would go for her at Movieline. Personally, I thought it would be a bit like hiring a psychiatrist for a patient, who is without any intent to soften her repeated diagnosis that "with this, again, you've proved yourself fucked, gone, lost in a land so foul I have no interest in retrieving you from or knowing any more about ... that'll be two hundred dollars, please." Kind of like a troll, I suppose, but really more like settling into a site its worst possible nightmare.
why does this womans reviews ever get counted these days? Its obvious shes just stupid.
lmao! 😀 The critic isn't very proffesional. haha 🙂
NO one should take his critiques seriouslly haha. 😉 not even this chick. They are just doing it for the money, that is my belive 😉 haha.
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