BE CAREFUL OF SPOILERS BELOW.
The world has cooled on The Matrix. It came, made a big splash, then two sequels followed and the world felt as if they overreacted to the first. However, no matter your opinion The Matrix was a pivotal film in the history of cinema. It was the Star Wars of a generation. Not in its longterm effects on the viewers, but in it’s longterm effects on the industry. The release of The Matrix will be on every film historians catalog of must sees for a very long time.
Since 1999, the year The Matrix was released, few films have made it to the same industry altering status as The Matrix. Well, Christopher Nolanhas finally done it with Inception. In fact he’s gone a step further. He’s made a film that I doubt people will tire of watching, reading about or discussing, unlike The Matrix.
All of you who’ve seen Inception are shaking your heads as I compare the film to The Matrix, but you can’t help but notice some similarities in premise. Both are based on the debate over what is reality.
Where The Matrix tries to hide an action movie with haphazard science and pseudo-philosophy; Inception turns the heist genre on its head by taking us into the minds of the victims. Literally.
Cobb (Leonardo Dicaprio) is the rare thief who is able to go into your mind and steal your secrets. He’s very good at what he does. The best in fact. One of the richest corporations in the world hires him to infiltrate the mind of Saito (Ken Watanabe) to find his plan for expansion. Cobb fails, but Saito hires Cobb for another job. This time instead of taking an idea from his mark, Saito wants Cobb to plant an idea. The process is called Inception. Cobb agrees because Saito offers him a way back home to his children, who he’s been unable to see since the death of their mother, Cobb’s wife, Mal (Marion Cotillard). So Cobb assembles a team, Arther (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Eames (Tom Hardy), Ariadne (Ellen Page), and Yusuf (Dileep Rao), and they go after their mark.
If I tell you anymore than that I might give something away. Actually I probably wouldn’t. I could probably lay out the whole film in this space and you’d still be scratching your head, confused, dying to see the movie, and still be surprised while watching.
Christopher Nolan has been exploring the perception of time since Following, his first film. He continued the exploration with Memento and now Inception. Although Inception deals more with reality, the bookends of the film open up debate on whether we saw the ending first, and the end was just a midpoint in Cobb’s journey through limbo. (But I need to see it again to begin this debate.)
Unlike other movies that spend most of their time trying to convince us that their science is solid, Inception never even explains how it’s possible. Looking at the simple IV contraptions the characters are hooked up to, you know what is happening on screen isn’t possible. How do their minds link up? It’s almost nonsensical, but it doesn’t matter. Only in hindsight does this come up, because in the reality of the moment you go with it.
The only major hole I can find in the film is Cobb’s motivation. He’s been running from the U.S. government since the death of his wife, a death he has been blamed for. He has been unable to see his children since then. Saito offers him freedom to return to the U.S. to see them. Everything that happens is so that Cobb can return to his family.
He obviously has money and is paid very well for what he does. So I don’t know why he doesn’t just fly them out to live with him in a country with no extradition treaties. It seems like a simple fix to me. I mean, I know I love America, but I think I’d live next door to Roman Polanski with my family before I had the balls to go through what Cobb does.
Actually I take that back I don’t want my kids anywhere near Roman Polanski.
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