Sogogi110

My friend and I watched it together. She liked it, I loved it, but we both came up with the same conclusion: Nolan compromised the intellectual integrity of the movie to appeal to a broader audience.

DiCaprio and Page weren't amazing in their roles, but they were safe popular choices that people would go to see.

20 minutes of gratuitous skiing action wasn't necessary, but hey, it's the climax, Hollywood movies, at some point, need to throw a bunch of money on the screen. The final area could've been something much more mystifying and cerebral.

Lastly, I think the dialogue does too much spoonfeeding. Instead of directly telling the viewer near the beginning that Cobb plans to plant a new idea instead of extract an idea, it could've been a major plot twist.

It's probably the most ambitious movie of all time. It could've been the greatest movie of all time had it not catered so much to 15-25 year old male audience.

Solid Snake

Page doesn't bring big ticket sales. She's very talented and I enjoy her work no matter what. DiCaprio legitimatizes a project for the audience based on his talent and good job choices.

Probably the most ambitious movie? No. It's big and it's got stuff that is technically a solid achievement but it's not the most ambitious. I could name so many films with grand ambitions and failed even w/ them. But even the successes for those of grand ambitions that I could name are still more important in conception alone than Inception. I like Inception but let us not think it's THAT earth shattering in terms of Film History.

RichC2

It isn't, but it gets a pass in the current time of entirely mindless blockbusters. It's a damn good flick, but the Nolan need to over explain everything hurt it. Still, it took chances for a big budget flick.

There's also movies like Time Crimes, Triangle and Coherence which work well on a much lower budget. Or that episode of Futurama ("The Sting").

Jay G.

Welcome to the forum Sogogi110! It's great that you want to talk about Inception, but typically we try to avoid duplicate threads. I feel like you post could've gone into the Inception Reviews thread:
http://forum.dvdtalk.com/movie-talk/...ws-thread.html

Yes, Inception was very ambitious for a big budget movie. As for the "spoonfeeding," that's pretty necessary for anything intended to reach a mainstream audience. As it is, there's still a lot of people that don't understand parts, or all, of the movie:

'Inception': Am I the only one who didn't get it?
Can Someone Please Explain Inception to Me?
I Did Not Understand INCEPTION?

Just Google "I didn't understand inception" to see the thousands of hits you get

As for other "mindbending" movies, my go-to is the time-travel movie Primer, but for a movie covering the same subject as Inception (entering other's dreams), there's the anime Paprika.

Mabuse

From my original review:

The scene in the snow sinks the whole film. It seem like Nolan was not up to the task of directing this sequence. It is muddled and confusing and fragmented. We don't know where anyone is in relation to anyone else. And while that might have been appropriate at some earlier point in the film, the focus of the story has become too important at this point to let the narrative fall apart.

Ultimately I feel the same way about Inception and Interstellar. It's nice to see a filmmaker swing for the fences even though the final product is a little half baked. No one else is doing it right now.

RichC2

Yeah, for a guy obsessed with time manipulation, he isn't very good at portraying the passage of time.

Supermallet

All the "spoonfeeding" would have been acceptable if Nolan didn't render all of the establishing work moot by having the characters take a shortcut in the third act, wasting all of the audience's time.

inri222

I'd like to hear what stvn1974 has to say about all of this.

bluetoast

It's funny how the central goal of the movie is planting an idea on someone who then thinks the idea was theirs all along. They act like this is the hardest thing ever, yet it's just manipulation in real life/other movies.

EddieMoney

I honestly have tried watching this movie several times, and it always puts me to sleep.

Michael Corvin

Loved the flick. Wasn't as deep as it thought it wanted to be. I need to watch it again.

Can't wait for our resident troll to chime in. Quite frankly I'm surprised he hasn't shown up yet.

stvn1974

Stupid movie. Not Dark Knight trilogy stupid but still stupid. Nolan needs to leave films like Memento, The Prestige and Inception to directors who know what they are doing like David Lynch.

GoldenJCJ

^ I love that you still manage to see all of Nolan's films. Internet trolling at its best.

stvn1974

I haven't seen Interstellar and won't be wasting my time with his 2 hour 45 minutes of exposition war flick that he is making now.

RichC2

This comment makes no sense. David Cronenberg? Maybe, but what was the last plot driven Lynch movie?

I'm sure we could give Guy Maddin a whack at it as well.

Ash Ketchum

I only wish I'd slept through it. Then I would have liked it better.

Brack

You did sleep through it. You were incepted.

Mabuse

Yeah I don't know what he's talking about. Nolan wrote all those films. So Nolan should leave all the films he writes to David Lynch...who is retired?

Jay G.

To be fair, The Prestige is an adaptation, so it's possible someone else could've written and directed a different adaptation.

Also David Lynch is directing all 18 episodes of the new Twin Peaks series., so I'm not sure if he counts as "retired."

Mabuse

Semi-retired.

Chrisedge

The Prestige is Nolan's best film...

inri222

Fixed

musick

QFT .... Memento is a fine piece of work as well

Inception .... not so much

Mabuse

Memento blows your mind the first time you see it, but after you sort it all out it's not as much fun to watch. The Prestige works every time I see it. Great performances and great philosophy that "the trick" is the essence of all creation.

Supermallet

I think Memento holds up to repeated viewings, but I agree that The Prestige is Nolan's best film.