The review of Inception !!

The Review of Inception (909 words)

Transported to Dreamland

Inception is an American science fiction action film written, produced, and directed by Christopher Nolan. The word Inception means a ‘beginning’ and Nolan has sown the seeds of the possibility of hypnotism in dreams. The plot is complex and intrinsic but beautifully woven to build a “dream” story. Dominic Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is the main protagonist, who explores this world of dreams by working as an extractor. Extractors and their victims sleep in close proximity to one another, connected by a device that administers a sedative and share a dream world built on their mental projections. As an extractor Dominic’s job is to architect dreams and create plots that make the target reveal his innermost secrets. In the dream world, pain is psychologically experienced as real but death results in awakening.

The plot of the movie could require any reviewer to write several pages. Hence, in this review we shall discover the world Nolan transports his audience. The film layers dreams on top of dreams to the point where a unique keepsake called a “totem” is required in order to inform a character as to whether or not he or she is still dreaming. To wake the team from each dream, timed "kicks” are organized at each level. Then you have people in particular roles like “The Architect” Ariadne (Ellen Page), “The Forger” Eames (Tom Hardy), and “The Chemist” Yusuf (Dileep Rao) in order to pull off the job. Furthermore, dreams have rules: dying in a dream forces the dreamer to wake up, delving too deeply into a mind can cause an eternal slumber called “Limbo”, using memories to construct dreams is dangerous because it can blur the line between dreams and reality. In addition, intruding in the dreams of another will cause the dreamer’s “projections” (human representations created by the dreamer) to attack the intruders like white blood cells going after an infection. And these explanations only represent a fraction of the terminology, rules, exceptions, or details that are necessary for creating the world of Inception.

Cristopher has layered the story where one part shows the methods of stealing people’s dream and the other works around the personal life of Cobb. While architecting dreams for Ariadne is Cobb’s deceased wife Mal (Marion Cotillard) who continually haunts him, sabotaging his missions. Cobb reveals to Ariadne that he and Mal shared dreams, spending many years in a limbo dream world forging their lives. After waking, Mal remained convinced that they were still dreaming and committed suicide, attempting to force Cobb to join her by incriminating him in her death. Cobb refused and was forced to flee the U.S. and leave his children to avoid murder charges.
Nolan also explores a possibility of what might go wrong if the dream goes astray. The end of the movie is when the lot tries to tackle the problems that they go through during this dreaming sequence. At a certain point, they realize that the strong dose of sedators will not result in awakening if a person dies but will send him into Limbo. Hence, the problem arises when Fischer is killed by Mal, causing him to go to Limbo. While Eames and a dying Saito stay behind to fend off Fischer's hostile projections, Ariadne and Cobb follow Fischer to a fourth level in an attempt to salvage the mission and confront Mal. The fourth level is Cobb's dystopia and there he and Ariadne confront Mal. Mal attempts to convince Cobb to stay in Limbo by making him question reality. Cobb reveals that he originally planted the idea in Mal's mind to wake up from their dream lives -- the act that proved inception was possible in the first place -- but that the belief persisted even after she woke, making him indirectly responsible for her suicide.

The much debatable end is that Cobb awakens on the plane to find everyone on the plane, including Saito, up and well. Saito honors their arrangement and Cobb enters the United States, reunited with his children at home. Cobb spins the totem to test reality, but is then distracted by his children. The top spins without fault for a long period of time, but begins to wobble just as the screen smash cuts to black, leaving the audience to determine whether Cobb is still in a dream or in reality. But for the “non-distracted” who had the patience to wait till the end of the credits Nolan answers their question by making us hear the fall of the totem which suggests that Cobb was back to reality.

Director Cristopher Nolan asks his viewers to just take “a leap of faith” and enjoy the movie. There are a lot of summer movies that ask you turn off your brain and enjoy the persistent-vegetative-state ride. Inception is not one of those movies. There’s a lot to take in, but the imaginative and thoughtful delivery of exposition keeps the viewer captivated despite the amount of information required in order to understand the premise, setting, and plot. The film deserves, demands, and rewards repeat viewings, but from your first viewing you can grasp the events on screen and how they interact with each other as long as you force yourself to be an active viewer. But with set pieces so intricate, so jaw-dropping, and so breathtaking, you’ll find that there’s no exertion needed to stay focused. You’ll already be swept up in the whirlwind.