Film Review: Inception, Part 5

Hello to anyone who is visiting through the A to Z Challenge. This is not in fact an A to Z post (although I for Inception might have worked yesterday), it’s actually the fifth in a series of five part reviews which act as a bit of a commentary through the film.

Last week’s part took us down from Dream World One, to Dream Worlds Two and Three. This part sees the resolution, but not before we get a spanner in the works, in the form of a certain man’s deceased wife.

122. Dream World Three is still having a snowy chase down the mountainside. Dream World One’s van is still falling off the bridge, very slowly, thankfully which is buying more time for the guys in Dream World Three.

123. Cobb assures Ariadne that killing projections doesn’t hurt the subject’s mind, which is just as well or Fischer would be a dribbling wreck by now.

124. Dream World Two sees Arthur elegantly wrapping the team together with cable to make a big Dream Team bundle, the better to give them their kick.

125. Dream World Three has a big explosion and Fischer reaching the inside of the building, only for Mal to show up and shoot him. Cobb shoots Mal, but not until after the damage to Fischer has been done. Way to let your subconscious ruin things, Cobb!

126. Luckily this is a dream so anything is possible. Eames starts trying to resuscitate Fischer, but Cobb says it’s pointless. Fischer’s in Dream World Four.

127. Ariadne’s got a plan though, they can follow Fischer down to Dream World Four, get the idea planted, then use the defib to bring him back out. Time passes slower in each level, so they’ll have more time down there to work with before the kick brings them out. They’ve got nothing else to lose, so they might as well go for it. Unfortunately this plan will mean sacrificing Saito.

128. The only problem is that Mal is going to want to keep Cobb down there in Dream World Four.

129. It’s not looking so hot these days. Cobb and Ariadne wake up on a beach where the building on the beach are falling into ruins. They’re literally collapsing as they stand there.

130. Dream World One has the van still falling. Dream World Two has Arthur loading the guys into the lift. Dream World Three has the building under attack and Eames relying on a near death Saito to protect them while he sets charges.

131. Meanwhile, down in Dream World Four, Ariadne and Cobb are taking their time to stroll through the abandoned city.

132. Dream World Two: Arthur’s breaking the cables holding up the lift.

133. Dream World Four: Cobb’s literally taking Ariadne on a stroll down memory lane, showing her all the houses and buildings that he and Mal lived in and recreated in their deep Dream World.

134. Arthur’s still setting charges on Dream World Two, it’s going to be a big explosion.

135. Back in Dream World Four, Cobb’s informing Ariadne that they’ll give Fischer a kick to wake him up, and also, by the way, I knew Inception was possible because that’s how I got Mal to go crazy and believe that the real world isn’t really real. And speak of the devil, there she is, playing with a knife again and begging Cobb to join her.

136. Eames is still doing battle with the projections in Dream World Three, while Saito is not looking very well.

137. Cobb knows that if the children turn around he’ll start to doubt whether he can go back. After all, then he’ll have Mal, Philippa and James all together. So he decides to come clean with Mal. He found her totem, set it spinning and made her believe that her world wasn’t real. Unfortunately she carried that back up to the real world with her.

138. I get wanting to kill yourselves together to get out of the Dream World. But letting a train run over your head is kind of not good at all!

139. All of this is upsetting to Subconscious!Mal. It’s pretty upsetting to Cobb too.

140. Dream World Three: The projections are infiltrating the building. Luckily Saito’s got it together enough to blow them up. Unfortunately it’s the last thing he does there and he expires right afterwards.

141. Dream World Two: Arthur turns on the music, so it’s time to give Fischer his kick.

142. Back in Dream World Four, Ariadne reminds Cobb that they didn’t come here to chat with Mal. Cobb’s staying in Dream World Four, but he’s not staying with Mal, he’s got to go rescue Saito to make sure he can go back to America. Besides, Subconscious!Mal is all crazy and weird. She helps Cobb make his decision by shooting Mal. Way to go Ariadne.

143. Dream World Three sees Fischer wake up after his kick from Dream World Four and Eames send him to look in the vault. And what’s inside? His dying father of course. Maurice is trying to say ‘disappointed’ but Dream!Maurice is able to clarify what he was saying, he was disappointed that his son was trying to be him. He wanted his son to be his own man. This makes Robert Fischer kind of happy and when he opens the safe, using that familiar string of numbers, he finds the will and the windmill he was blowing in the photo by his father’s bed. So now his subconscious believes his father cared.

144. And with that Eames blows the place up.

145. In Dream World Four things start to disintegrate, while the guys in Dream World Two start to wake up, just in time for the lift to hit the ground, waking them up in Dream World One, just as the van hits the water.

146. Cobb says his farewells to Mal, while back on Dream World One Fischer grabs Browning!Eames and escapes. Luckily the rest of the team have an oxygen tank to help them get out, though they have to leave Cobb behind. Fischer’s realised that his father wanted his son to be his own man, and that means dividing up the business.

147. And so we come back to the beginning of the film. Cobb waking on on the beach of a distant shore. So the answer to Old!Saito’s question is ‘Yes, I have come to kill you’. Cobb doesn’t seem entirely sure why he’s actually there, it’s something to do with the fact that the world isn’t real and that they had an arrangement together.

148. Saito obviously makes the right decision because the next thing we see is Cobb waking up on the plane. Fischer’s there looking pensive. Arthur’s smiling, Ariadne gives him a curious sort of look, Saito’s looking kind of shell-shocked though that might be because of the way Cobb is glaring at him. To his credit, Saito does make a call immediately afterwards.

149. So there’s the difficult task of entering the States. No one arrests Cobb though, so it looks like Saito was true to his world. As he strolls through baggage reclaim he sees the other members of the team, and Fischer, and finally Michael Caine, waiting to take him home to his children.

150. Cobb sets the top spinning on the table and the children look round at him. Meanwhile the top goes on spinning, wobbling a little bit like it’s about to fall over, but the screen goes black before we can know for definite if it does. Which begs the question, is he still in a dream?

Hope you’ve enjoyed this little handful of reviews. Check back next week for my next film review… just as soon as I’ve worked out what that’ll be!