Sunday, August 15, 2010

Half review, half PSA, all awesome!

I went to go see the movie Inception a while ago, and then always intended to write a review of it, but then I enjoyed telling people about it so much I never ended up writing it. It has recently come to my attention, however, that people should be forewarned about it so they do not suffer the same fate I did. This won't contain any spoilers (like there's anything to spoil...)

This movie has been pushed as a mental-thriller, a headtrip, or a thinking movie. It's not. If you can wrap your mind around the notion that sometimes people run out of ideas for fiction and resort to "But it was all a dream!" and then sometimes that gets overplayed so people say, "No, THAT was a dream" then you have a pretty good basis to watch Inception on. If you can further tax your mental resources and continue one step further to conclude "No, THAT was a dream!"Then congratulations, you've just watched Inception. The movie plot suffers from a form of "Dragonball Z"-kosis where they assume it furthers a script to continually shout "No I'm going down 3 dream levels" and "Well, I'm going down 4 dream levels!" but no one has the ability to go super-sayan.

Not to say it isn't a good movie. There are interesting notions and some cute visual effects (yes, I said "cute"), and a pretty good fight scene in a hallway, but since I had expected thinking, I kept expecting twists, and was sorely disappointed. In fact,my overactive brain came up with several mind-assaulting twists that I debating sending in the direector, even one that plays very heavily on the notion of "it was all a dream!!" that they present, while still, in my opinion, knocking your socks off.

All in all, it's an okay movie. Something you'd go see if the tickets were free, or you could borrow it free of charge from a friend. It does what people expect from movies now; it entertains. It is entertaining. Sometime just recently, I blame "Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali" for this, but that is no longer sufficient for me.

One final note: I do not want to hear "Let's see you do better!" or any variation thereof. My job is not to make movies. If I was given the same resources, heck yah, I'll make a head-case of a movie. But just because I have not made a movie does not mean I can not judge them. I've never raised a child, but I know when I think people are scum.

see more Epic Win FTW

1 comment:

Roots said...

It's harder for high IQ types to enjoy good thinking movies like this. Which is exactly what this is to the avergae ppopulace. A movie which forces them to think in order to understand.

Perhaps next time you go to an acclaimed thinking movie you should bring along someone not so smart so that you can explain it to them afterwards. This may help you enjoy the movie and understand the level of palpability it must maintain for the masses.

After all if people don't understand the movie it won't sell many tickets. :)