‘Inception’ full of mind games and mystery:
0 Comments | Charleston Daily Mail, Jul 16, 2010 | by ANN HORNADY
‘Inception’
(PG-13)
“Inception,” the highly anticipated science-fiction thriller by writer-director Christopher Nolan, opens with a dramatic shot of huge waves breaking on a shore. And that image suggests the best way to watch a film with such a tightly coiled plot, cerebral conceits and formidable ambition. Rather than try to game out “Inception” on first viewing, it’s best to let it wash over you, and save the head- scratching and inevitable Talmudic interpretations for later.
Chances are, there will be a later: “Inception” is the kind of film that no doubt will drive scores of viewers to theaters for a second go. But the key to success in a movie as purposefully complex as this one is that you see it again not because you have to, but because you want to. “Inception” is that rare film that can be enjoyed on superficial and progressively deeper levels, a feat that uncannily mimics the mind-bending journey its protagonist takes.
That would be Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), who makes his living navigating the minds of other people, sharing their dreams and stealing ideas in an elaborate psychological gambit known as “extraction.” Along with his henchman, Arthur (Joseph Gordon- Levitt), and a vaguely sinister sleep-inducing gadget, Cobb has worked mostly with businesses engaged in super-complicated corporate espionage. But rather than steal an idea, a client named Saito (Ken Watanabe) hires Cobb and Arthur to plant one in the mind of Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy), in a process called “inception.”
It’s a tough job, and Cobb proceeds to assemble a crack team of dream-weavers to help him pull it off, including a wily forger named Eames (Tom Hardy), a chemist named Yusuf (Dileep Rao) and a young architect named Ariadne (Ellen Page).
Nolan has always been prone to making hermetic, self-serious movies, from his 2000 breakthrough film “Memento” to “Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight.” But he lets a little more air into “Inception,” in the form of an occasional joke and an essentially popcorn-movie premise.
DiCaprio and Page bring quiet focus to roles that would have been scuttled by showboating. Hardy, who delivered an astonishing turn in last year’s “Bronson,” provides most of the film’s welcome comic relief, needling Gordon-Levitt with deadpan economy as the scheme just gets weirder.
In “Inception,” Nolan manages to create a world all his own
science fiction writers