I don't consider myself to be all that intelligent.
This isn't bait for everyone to come to me and try to massage my ego. I just really truly don't. Never really have. Beyond kinda being dumb, I'm also pretty gullible at times. Back before every person in our society had a small computer with them at all times, someone would tell me something and I'd believe them. I had this naive sense that people wouldn't lie nor would they manipulate me.
Then you look at film. Films are supposed to manipulate and engage you. Sometimes even trick you into believing things. Inherently, I don't believe anyone truly wants to be a skeptic. I think people want to be fooled in some regard. As I believe I mentioned when I was covering the Scream franchise, I get mad when I guess who the killer is.
This goes for all movies. If I guess what the twist is before it happens in the movie, it ruins it for me. If I know going in there's going to be a twist, I try not to give any mental real estate to it. I'll analyze after, but when I'm first seeing a movie, I'm just along for the ride. I've been told this is what is now known as "vibes".
You show up to a club and the air is hazy with cigar smoke. Everything smells a little off, like decades old marinara. It doesn't matter, though, because you're vibing out. You feel cool at the moment. You can find out later whether that dark stain in the corner is blood or mud. For right now, you're just chilling.
When I first saw Inception in theaters over a decade and a half ago, that's how it felt. It was advertised in the same category as The Matrix. A cool sorta sci-fi action movie. Knowing the director, there were bound to be twists. I was totally with it that first time in the theater.
It didn't hurt that I was seeing it with the world's biggest Christopher Nolan fan. I, more or less, drafted off of his excitement for the film. We were thrilled throughout, laughing at times at the pure joy of just being in a theater and having a communal experience.
Inception follows a group of dream thieves, people who have the specific skills and equipment to invade people's dreams and sometimes implant ideas that are not their own. The head of the team, Dom Cobb (DiCaprio), runs afoul of an exceedingly powerful man (Watanabe) and has to put himself and his team at risk to execute an extremely difficult job: inception. They have to find a way to make a man (Murphy) do something that, under normal circumstances, he'd never do.
All of that sounds really cool. People in suits with guns, shooting at people inside of a dreamscape. Are you kidding me? This is the kind of thing that film was created for. Just a wild concept and, with Nolan's assured direction, we're in good hands. Right?
Right?
Well, on the first view, absolutely. I was completely enthralled the whole time. I let myself marinate in the film, wash over me, if you will. It looks amazing, between the production design and cinematography. It also sounds great with Hans Zimmer's score and the sound design. It's hitting on all cylinders. The "vibes" are there. The cast Nolan assembled is among the best of this century.
So, what gives?
The screenplay. While the whole thing is pretty clever, it fails one of the basic "rules" of screenwriting. It is almost wall-to-wall exposition. In screenplays, you're supposed to "show, don't tell". This movie is giving you exposition from about minute 10 all the way through the climax. Every time the characters are about to do something, someone has to explain to the audience what's happening. That's not how things are supposed to work. You get super excited for an action scene and then someone slides in from off camera to be like, "Well, wait a minute. What's going on?" At one point, Elliot Page actually has the line, "Whose subconscious are we going into exactly?"
It has been argued over the years that Nolan's concept for Inception is so complex, dialogue like that is necessary for people to understand the plot. I don't completely believe that's true. If you've listened to Nolan in any of the many interviews he's done over the course of his career, he often says he's trying to engage your heart over your mind. That you're supposed to feel his movies. And I get that, Spielberg's been doing that for years. But, for the most part, you don't need a degree in paleontology to understand Jurassic Park.
When I've voiced my concerns over this, and other, Nolan films, I've been told, "Oh, you just don't get it." Definitely possible. I may not understand a movie that I'm watching. As I said, I'm pretty gullible and often let a movie just be itself for the first couple of times I see it, especially if the plot is predicated on a twist of some sort. But, a movie needs to engage the audience. It can't just act like it's its own special little thing that Nolan and his buddies laugh about. You're making films for others, or you should be.
There was a similar complaint with his film Tenet. A movie so confusing even the actors stopped asking what was happening. It's a funny concept that this guy is making movies no one understands, getting enormous budgets to bring them to life and then poo-pooing the people that don't understand it, but I can't imagine a lot of people go to the movies to be condescended to. Inception wants to be The Matrix in the worst way but fails. It's too pleased with itself and hopes to all that is good and holy that you don't ask questions. In a way, it reminds me of the TV show Lost. Lost set up some wild mysteries and by the end of the show, the writers were just shrugging and hoping people would take their nonsense explanations.
Nolan is a polarizing director. I've liked a lot of his movies, but haven't loved many. I always look forward to a new film of his, no matter what it is. The issue is after I see a movie of his, sometimes it doesn't hit for me. What's worse is he has this surplus of sycophants who appear like Beetlejuice anytime a scintilla of criticism is brought up. We've come to the time in our society where even our opinions on film come under scrutiny. There's a guy that I was pretty decent acquaintances with years ago who blocked me entirely because we had differing opinions on The Dark Knight.
Imagine explaining that to the Founding Fathers.
Me: Hey, George. I'm from the future. We have so many things that connect us as people over the globe that many people use to complain. We've even reached a point where people will have differing opinions about this thing called a film and block their opponent.
George Washington is so shocked that his jaw drops, leading to his wooden teeth falling out.
When all is said and done, Inception falls apart after some scrutiny. Nolan has ebbed and flowed over the years. In particular, I really enjoyed Oppenheimer. He's a talented and seemingly nice guy. I just can't help but think that if he climbed out of his ivory tower and found a better way to explain the plot in Inception, we'd have a shorter and better film. It's by no means a bad film, but the praise that's heaped on it, especially over 15 years since release, always baffled me.
If you're looking for confusing vibes, find something by David Lynch. If you want heady sci-fi, look for The Matrix, Dark City or Minority Report. If you want a bunch of guys in suits explaining their every move in detail, Inception is for you!
And if you don't understand it, you're in good company. Either that, or we're all dumb.
Inception (2010)
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ken Watanabe, Tom Hardy, Elliot Page, Dileep Rao, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger, Marion Cotillard, Pete Postlethwaite
Runtime: 148 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG-13 (for sequences of violence and action throughout)
Rating (out of ****): **1/2
Inception is streaming on all major platforms to rent or buy. There are also physical media releases available on Blu-Ray and 4K.
