First Hit: Beautifully and visually arresting but overly complicated, long and too many gun fights to make it really work.
I don’t think films need to be seen multiple times to understand them better. Films need to create the story in a way which allows one to move (pulled) into the story with thoughtfulness.
I don’t want a lot of rethinking of what I just saw, wondering how it conjoins with the part I’m seeing now and if it makes sense with the beginning or where it might be going. Good films can be complicated. A good complicated film allows the complicatedness to unfold in such a way that the audience trusts the story and director to make sense of it all which they invariably do.
There are films I will see more than once (Memento and Sixth Sense to name two) looking to see if I missed story line clues along the way which revealed an earlier ending or a plot twist which I misunderstood, but after seeing it again, I realize it was just a well-made film.
I don't see films more than once just so I can understand the film. If after seeing a film I have this thought that I have to see the film again to understand it, then in my book, the director has failed. Inception is such a film.
Christopher Nolan over complicated this story and film to make it seem intelligent. He didn’t have to. The story is already intelligent. I understood the story, but it's the execution which is flawed. I knew early on why Cobb (played by Leonardo DiCaprio) felt guilty about his wife’s death. It was obvious, the early hints at tokens and them being personal along with the longing angst.
One knew early on it wasn’t his token which he was carrying. Nolan tried to make this a pivotal part of the film but it didn't work that way. It became a weight. At 148 minutes it was laboriously long and could have used about 30 – 40 minutes of trimming. Cut out the multitude of gun battles (why were they there and what did they add?) in which only one person on the “good team” gets shot. How can people miss their target at 2 feet distance, (Think about this: I’m at the window of your van with a really big gun, you’ve got 6 people in your van and pull off 15 shots and I don’t hit anyone – not likely) especially if they are hired killers?
Much of the gun battle stuff doesn’t make sense nor does it add to the intrigue of the film's concept. Just because a person is in a dream doesn’t mean they cannot get shot; if one guy gets shot (and he did), then all can get shot (and they don't).
On the plus side, the exploration of dreams at multiple levels is interesting. The concept of inception or implanting an idea and having it take hold and grow is in someone's mind is interesting. Another really good segment in the film was the part in which Cobb hires Ariadne (played by Ellen Page) as the dream architect.
The initial scenes where she is learning how to be a dream architect are extraordinary. Page (as Ariadne) is just the right kind of person to push dream boundaries with a particular amount of intelligence and risky youthful exuberance.
DiCaprio is alright here but from an acting standpoint he hasn’t grown and his standard character is getting worn out. Page is wonderful especially at the beginning of the film. Joseph Gordon-Levitt as DiCaprio’s side kick is great as the solid piece of the team. He brought great energy and clarity to the film. Nolan did direct some great scenes with interesting pictures, but the story (by Nolan) was overwrought with needless gun fights (real or imaginative) and took away from what might have been a real psychological thriller.
Overall: Not an impressive film and certainly doesn’t live up to the hype of the previews or press.