Film Review: Inception, Part 1

I had no idea what film to review after the Harry Potter films. At some point I want to work my way through all the Hobbit films, but I’d rather wait to do that until after I’ve got the third one (and it’s not out until next month) so I needed something to fill that time.

Mr Click requested Inception, when I asked for his thoughts on the matter, because he hoped one of these reviews might make things clearer for him. I’m not so sure that’ll help, since I just took a couple of cold and flu capsules. But we’ll see…

I’ve divided this up into five as I did with most of the Harry Potter films because otherwise it’d be a ridiculously long post. In this firm part we are introduced to the idea that people can go wandering around other people’s dreams and start to meet some of the main players.

1. Ooh, Warner Bros logo in black and white. Kind of creepy. Ditto Legendary Pictures logo.

2. And we’re at the beach. Look, Jack made it after all.

3. This room has way too many lampshades. Can you imagine having to change the bulbs?

4. Very old man wants to know if Jack’s here to kill him.

5. And suddenly the old man is much younger.

6. Jack is actually called Mr Cobb and he’s wanting to help Mr Saito to protect his brain from ‘Extractors’.

7. Their gambit is an interesting one; tell us everything so we can protect it all.

8. But wait! They’re actually asleep, in an apartment with a riot going on outside. The only man who is awake is getting kind of twitchy.

9. I like how they use the watches to show the difference between real time and dream time.

10. There’s an unwanted guest in the dream.

11. Why on earth would you tie a rope to a chair and then rely on someone who is clearly flaky to sit on it while you dangle yourself out the window? Smart move Cobb.

12. Apparently Mal is on Saito’s side and Saito knows this is all a dream.

13. And so we learn that you can feel pain in a dream but that if someone kills you, you wake up. So when Arthur is killed the dream world collapses in a spectacular style.

14. Cobb’s not got long to read the confidential document he’s been trying to get his hands on.

15. Outside the dream world Arthur orders the sweaty twitchy guy to give Cobb ‘the kick’ which means pushing him off the chair into a bath of water. This prompts the dream world to flood. It’s all very dramatic.

16. Now Saito is questioning Cobb about how he knew about the apartment. Apparently this is an audition.

17. And hang on a minute, we’re still in a dream. Everyone, including twitchy, is asleep on a train, where a guy starts playing La Vie en Rose.

18. Back in the apartment dream, the deception has been discovered. Twitchy got the carpet wrong; wool instead of polyester. Oops. Now Saito knows he’s in a dream.

19. He’s actually impressed. Dream within a dream. Clever.

20. And then the mob come in and wake up twitchy, who we learn is the architect.

21. They all split, leaving Saito snoozing on the train. He’s obviously puzzled by what he was dreaming, but he smiles… so happy?

22. Cobb’s playing with his spinning top… and gun until the spinning top falls over. It’s clever how these little things are introduced and then explained later.

23. He can’t go home to see his kids because he’s ‘working’. This is something that will explained later as well. Oh and their mum is clearly dead, they just haven’t said as much yet.

24. Arthur’s still concerned about Mal showing up in the dreams. Meanwhile they have to leave because they failed and their employers won’t be happy.

25. Also twitchy is called Nash and he’s a dead man, he sold them out to Saito. It’s okay though, Saito has a job for them. Not so good for Nash though.

26. Inception = putting an idea into someone else’s head. Hard part: Making them think it was their idea all along.

27. Cobb can’t go back to America but Saito is promising him if he can do this, then he’ll be able to go home. All he needs to do is make his rival’s son break up his soon-to-be dead father’s business empire, simple.

28. Arthur doesn’t think it can be done, but Cobb knows it can. He’s being all serious and brooding though so we won’t learn anything else yet.

We’ll move on to the next part next week, which will see the team assembling which is a good excuse for the characters to explain how the whole dream sharing/Extraction/Inception thing will work.


See you there.