Inception (2010) movie review by Kate

Inception (2010)

Movie reviews by Kate

Reel reviews for real people

Rating: PG-13 for sequences of violence and action throughout

Genre: Action & Adventure, Mystery & Suspense, Science Fiction & Fantasy

Staring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Ken Watanabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard

Director: Christopher Nolan

Running time: 2:28

Plot: In a world where technology exists to enter the human mind through dream invasion, a single idea within one’s mind can be the most dangerous weapon or… In a world where technology exists to enter the human mind through dream invasion, a single idea within one’s mind can be the most dangerous weapon or the most valuable asset. (Rotten Tomatoes)

Kate says  – 4 stars “Put your thinking caps on for this one, because you’re going to need them.  Here’s my advice on watching Inception…just go with it. Pay attention. Try to keep up but don’t expect to understand what’s going on, and know that you’re in good company  because no one else knows what’s going on either. Inception is startlingly clever, imaginative, fascinating and intense.  Finally an action film that actually makes us pay attention to more than the blur of motion. The words of movie reviewers can’t possibly do this movie justice, you’re gonna have to see this one to believe it.”

Ebert says – 4 stars “It’s said that Christopher Nolan spent ten years writing his screenplay for “Inception.” That must have involved prodigious concentration, like playing blindfold chess while walking a tight-wire. The film’s hero tests a young architect by challenging her to create a maze, and Nolan tests us with his own dazzling maze. We have to trust him that he can lead us through, because much of the time we’re lost and disoriented. “Inception” does a difficult thing. It is wholly original, cut from new cloth, and yet structured with action movie basics…Here is a movie immune to spoilers: If you knew how it ended, that would tell you nothing unless you knew how it got there. And telling you how it got there would produce bafflement. The movie is all about process, about fighting our way through enveloping sheets of reality and dream, reality within dreams, dreams without reality. It’s a breathtaking juggling act…” (read full review)

Claudia Puig (USA Today) says – 3 1/2 stars “With Inception, writer/director Christopher Nolan not only cements his status as Hollywood’s most innovative filmmaker, he has created a daring genre: the surrealist heist thriller. Or, maybe he has developed the dream invasion action epic. No matter what you call it, the story is the most complex of any summer movie. Hollywood films generally regard audiences as below average in intelligence. Nolan, the creator of such films as Memento, Insomnia and The Dark Knight, regards his viewers as possibly smarter than they are —or at least as capable of rising to his inventive level. That’s a tall order. But it’s refreshing to find a director who makes us stretch, even occasionally struggle, to keep up.” (read full review)

Rene Rodriguez (Miami Herald) says – 3 1/2 stars “Inception is filled with grand, astonishing sights (in a dream, Page folds Paris onto itself as if she were folding a sheet of paper) and small, ingenious bits (DiCaprio gets stuck in a narrow alley while running away from bad guys, and the claustrophobia is nerve-racking). Nolan pays as much attention to small details as to big ones. The movie is as carefully constructed as a Faberge egg. The last half hour, a dream within a dream within a dream, is a breathtaking marvel of editing and pacing, cutting back and forth among three realms, the events in one impacting the others. The effect tickles your mind, then blows it right out of your skull.” (read full review)

Rex Reed (New York Observer) says – 1 star “Inception is the kind of pretentious perplexity in which one or two reels could be mischievously transposed, or even projected backward, and nobody would know the difference. It’s pretty much what we’ve come to expect from summer movies in general and Christopher Nolan movies in particular, but I keep wondering: Can he do anything of more lasting value? He’s got vision, but creating jigsaw puzzles nobody can figure out and using actors as puppets who say idiotic things, dwarfed by sets like sliding Tinker Toys, doesn’t seem like much of an accomplishment to me.” (read full review)