#9 Inception

In Summary

Inception, the film about dreams within dreams within dreams - and lots of guns.

Set in a near future where it is possible to enter another person's dream, Inception is a corporate espionage heist movie where the goal is to implant an idea into someone's mind.

With such a complex and surreal concept, the success of Inception is how effectively it conveys the rules of its universe using as little exposition as possible. There is no background information given to the audience at the start of the film. The audience is launched into the middle of a multi-layered dream, showing, rather than telling, us how Inception works.

A thread running through Inception is how can we tell the difference between a dream and reality. However, any time for meditation on that concept is often interrupted by high-stakes action set-pieces involving heavy artillery.

You almost feel sorry for Christopher Nolan if the dreams in Inception are his actual dreams. While there are some interesting alterations to the rules of physics, nods to optical illusions and a clever time-slowing device, the dreams in Inception feel lacking in a sense of imagination.

Inception just about does enough by the end to make us question just what might and might not have been a dream in the film. However, a more impactful film might have been able to ask the audience the question of what the difference between dreams and reality in their own lives are.

A Memorable Quote

What is the most resilient parasite? Bacteria? A virus? An intestinal worm? An idea. Resilient... highly contagious. Once an idea has taken hold of the brain it's almost impossible to eradicate. An idea that is fully formed - fully understood - that sticks; right in there somewhere.

Things You May Not Know

• In Japan, television broadcasts of the film show a number in the top-left corner of the screen to show the level of dream being shown. Kind of spoils the point of the film.
• The snow-based third-level of dream is based on On Her Majesty's Secret Service, which is Christopher Nolan's favourite Bond film.
• The movie's running time - two hours and twenty-eight minutes - is apparently a reference to the Edith Piaf song Non, je ne regrette rien, which is two minutes and twenty-eight seconds long.

One of the Greatest of All Time?
Having already outlined my greatest frustration with this film - the non-dreamlike dreams - the other issue I have is that none of the characters are particularly compelling or memorable. Each one of them just feels like a generic version of other roles each actor has played in their careers.

That is not to say that Inception is not a highly entertaining and watchable film. Credit has to be given to Christopher Nolan for taking such a surreal and complex concept and turning it into something so crowd-pleasing. Even if it isn't quite as smart as it thinks it is, Inception is the kind of big budget film I would like to see made more often.