Inception

 

Reviewed 16 July 2010 by Ted Faraone

 

2 ½ stars out of Five; $6.50 ticket on a scale of $0 to $13.00

 

 

ONE MUST REALLY LOVE LEO TO LIKE ‘INCEPTION’

 

Filmgoers who spend all of 148 minutes plus commercials and trailers to see “Inception,” which opens today, really have to love Leonardo DiCaprio to like the picture.  He’s on screen for at least half of those minutes.  And his scowl hardly ever softens into a smile.  Pic, helmed and written by Christopher Nolan (“The Dark Knight”) follows a predictably Nolan skein:  Deeply flawed hero gets into big trouble and has to plumb the depths of his flaws (endangering a good many other people) to get out of the fire and back into the frying pan.  Yawn.

 

DiCaprio’s performance is about average for his oeuvre.  Sir Michael Caine as his father-in-law absolutely shines in a role way too small for his talent.  Rest of cast is more than adequate, but the adorable and talented Ellen Page is woefully miscast in this sci-fi, paranormal, action flick.  Really… she is perfect for her Cisco Systems commercials.  She has been fabulous ever since her breakthrough in “Juno.”  She does her best in this $200 million frittata, but it’s just not the right material for her.  A young Sigourney Weaver could have pulled off the action-adventure stuff with far more credibility.  Heck, even today’s middle aged Sigourney Weaver would have been better casting with only a minor re-write.  (Anyone remember “Galaxy Quest”? Or the “Alien” franchise?)  For Page, this has to be a case of “take the money and run.”  Run very far from this, Ellen….

 

Plot is little more than an excuse for typically Nolan special effects.  That’s where most of the $200 million went.  Your critic has nothing against special effects, but Nolan has a way of dragging them out ad nauseam.  A shot of a van falling off a bridge is dragged out and repeated so many times that your critic nearly shouted, “Enough, already!  We get the point.”

 

Central to pic is the intersection of dreams and reality.  It seems that the US Army has developed a way for an “extractor” to get into the dreams of a target and extract secret information from said target’s subconscious.  Like all other spook operations, this one has gone freelance with extractors for hire.  Leo has his own crew.  There are others.  They all know each other.  It’s a tad like Berlin in a John Le Carre novel.

 

Pic’s first problem is that Nolan takes two reels to accomplish exposition, at the end of which auds learn that Leo is on the lam and cannot return to the US, where he has two utterly adorable kids.  He gets an offer he can’t refuse from Saito, a Japanese energy mogul (Ken Watanabe), and the games begin.  Unfortunately, Watanabe, who offers a very compelling performance given the material, has a thick Japanese accent.  For American auds a few shekels could have been thrown at a dialogue coach or at subtitles.  Nolan compensates by repeating plot cues ad infinitum… just in case someone missed a line of dialogue.

 

Pic’s second problem is the special effects.  Your critic would guess that Warner Bros. could have saved about $50 million by being a more selective with them.

 

Despite all the razzle-dazzle, plot is not all that difficult to follow.  Saito wants an idea planted in the head of a commercial rival through his dreams.  This involves going down three levels, a dream within a dream within a dream, something that has only happened once, when DiCaprio’s Cobb was playing with wife Mal (Marion Cotillard well cast) with the technology.  The two built an ideal dream world which she preferred to reality.  Eventually she killed herself fingering DiCaprio with the idea that they’d have a double suicide and live in the dream world.  The problem is that once one has confused dreams with reality and actually dies, one exists only as a projection in someone else’s dream.  In what may be an “extra,” the musical cue to end a dream is Edith Piaf’s “Je ne regrette rien.”  Frequent filmgoers will remember that Cotillard played Piaf in the 2007 “La Vie en Rose.”

 

The second level dream is pic’s most confusing element.  It takes place in and around an imaginary hospital on a snow covered mountain.  The mark (Cillian Murphy as Robert Fischer, Jr.) needs to be talked into breaking up his late dad’s energy monopoly.  In return, Saito will fix things so that DiCaprio can re-enter the US without fear of arrest.  Problem is that everybody is in the same white combat suits in the snow.  It is next to impossible to tell who is shooting at whom, even if the bad guy’s are merely projections of Fischer’s brain.  (Murphy had a featured role in Nolan’s “The Dark Knight.”)

 

Architects and architecture are central to the plot.  DiCaprio was an architect.  Caine, his father-in-law, is a professor of architecture at the Sorbonne.  Page’s Ariadne is Caine’s most promising student.  DiCaprio recruits her for Saito’s project because he can no longer design dreamspace without bringing in his own projections -- his kids and his late wife, the latter of whom has a habit of foiling his subconscious plots.  At least there are some neat modernist buildings, and Leo’s abode (before going on the lam) is a Frank Lloyd Wright house.

 

Pic’s denouement takes place in the third level.  It’s a bit trite.  Leo settles things with Marion…sort of.  Critical to pic are two things:  the speed with which dreams unfold compared to corresponding reality and the length of the flight from Sidney, Australia to LAX.  Most of pic’s action takes place in the first class cabin of a 747, which is upstairs, behind the cockpit.  This is set up by pic’s only good joke, a line uttered by Watanabe, after being told that it would require buying the entire first class cabin and paying off the flight attendant.  He says, “I just bought the airline.  I thought it would be cleaner.”

 

“Inception” is rated PG-13 largely for violence.  There is no sex and very little profanity.  Absolutely no nudity.  One supposes that kids will be dazzled by landscapes turning upside down and buildings crumbling.

 

Unfortunately, “Inception” ends with one of the most audience cheating finales ever to disgrace the wide screen.  Auds should pay attention to the role of the “totem” in the world of extractors.  This one has the handwriting of Warner Bros. suits all over it scrawling “sequel.”

 

--30--

 

Photos (top to bottom):  Leonardo DiCaprio; Marion Cotillard & DiCaprio; DiCaprio & Cillian Murphy; DiCaprio and Joseph Gordon-Levitt; DiCaprio & Ellen Page on level 2; Gordon-Levitt & DiCaprio; DiCaprio& Cotillard trapped in his memory; Ken Watanabe & Cotillard as Leo's projection; Sir Michael Caine at the Sorbonne; Ellen Page, Caine, DiCaprio, cinematorgrapher Wally Pfister; helmer Christopher Nolan; the adorable Page out of character.