Inception

Maybe it's because I have a small child, but the final scene -- hell, even the anticipation of the final scene -- made me sob uncontrollably.

I loved the movie; it was exciting, made me think, made me fee, was well-made and well-acted.

I really am perplexed and frustrated at the backlash. If you didn't enjoy it, fine, no big deal; for every film I love there are a million who dislike it. That's art. It is inherently unfair to judge a movie based on its expectations or in relation to its impact on pop culture or any number of false thresholds we prescribe to any piece of art in any medium.

 

40% who don't like it just won't "get it" at all.
10% will get it and genuinely not like it.
50% will dislike it just to be contrarian.

 

I'm not surprised people laughed. The movie had little emotional depth. Does anyone look like they're having any fun making this movie? Minority Report is on the opposite side.

(In my IMAX they kind of half-groaned.)

 

I agree. I wasn't really invested in the characters. Their motivations for doing what they did didn't carry that much weight. To me, they were just reasons to make the story go. The thing about the ending is that it was unoriginal. It's now almost as if people are expecting these types of movies to end that way, so it's becoming cliche.

 

Maybe it's because I have a small child, but the final scene -- hell, even the anticipation of the final scene -- made me sob uncontrollably.

I loved the movie; it was exciting, made me think, made me fee, was well-made and well-acted.

I really am perplexed and frustrated at the backlash. If you didn't enjoy it, fine, no big deal; for every film I love there are a million who dislike it. That's art. It is inherently unfair to judge a movie based on its expectations or in relation to its impact on pop culture or any number of false thresholds we prescribe to any piece of art in any medium.


i was also suprisingly roped in emotionally by the ending.
thought the different levels of the dreams were handled real well in the last act. a bit miffed at the sudden change of rules in that act regarding saito, but whatever.
nolan has such a unique vision i think he's always worth watching.

 

Movie would have been much better if they were all just swashbuckling adventurers who loved what they were doing instead of a bunch of mopes weighed down by the emotion of it all.

 

I'd give it a solid B. I thought Shutter Island was better.

Spoiler below





























From looking online, it appears as though Cobb's real totem is his wedding ring. He's wearing it when he's dreaming. Not wearing it when he's awake.

 

I can buy that the whole movie is a dream. The ending is too perfect. But that Saito as the wife? He got the top from Cobb. The gun and the top were the only things on him.

 

Exactly. Saito's men pulled the top off of Cobb when they also found the gun when he was lying on the beach. The whole film, from the very opening scene, is all a dream.

 

Any movie where they name the bad guy (er...gal) "Mal" makes me want to groan.

I think they should have gone with Baddy McBadperson. That's how much thought naming a person Mal takes.

 

The opening scene is also the classic "dream knowledge" DiCaprio talks about later when he asks Page about not knowing about the start of a dream, it's always remembered in the middle.

That's what happens from the first moment. You see Cobb in the water right before he is taken. There's no information to how he got there until the very end when the film wraps up.

 

I've seen it twice and came to a different conclusion each time.

First time - There was a reality and there were dreams. But when he went under for this final mission, he never woke up. He was too deep, and as we all know, you can't wake up when you're that deep and in that sedation. So when old man Saito lifted that gun, I thought he shot Dom to wake him up (saito didn't know that this couldn't happen) but actually sent him to limbo. Dom's limbo was a place where he could be with his kids and where he let go of Mal. Thus, the totem was going to keep spinning.

Second - He woke up. The stewardess woke him up and said they'd be landing in 20 minutes. Which means he slept for the whole 10 hour flight. Which means the sedative simply wore off. However, he was probably stuck for decades down there with Saito, since time is obviously different.