MOVIE REVIEW: INCEPTION

INCEPTION

Four of Seven Cows

Leonardo DiCaprio is one of our best. For me he first came on the radar in What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, and his talent has been obvious ever since. While his gifts as an actor are beyond dispute, his ability to choose quality material is every bit as impressive. Similarly gifted actors have had their careers blown off course by ill-chosen projects before – think Val Kilmer in the dreadful The Island of Dr. Moreau – but DiCaprio has an unblemished record of choosing interesting, intelligent scripts. If he’s in a movie, I’m likely to go see it: It’s that simple.

           

Inception, however, has me wondering if perhaps even he isn’t able to lay an egg on occasion. In his newest film DiCaprio leads a team that’s able to invade another’s dreams, altering their sub-conscious for fun and profit. It’s really an interesting idea and one rich with possibilities, but it’s also one that could easily become impossibly confusing. Writer/Director Christopher Nolan avoids this trap, but the focus necessary to avoid confusion in the narrative comes at the expense of character development.

            

 It is perhaps ironic that I often found myself nodding off in a movie about dream invasion, but there it is. In spite of the fact that there were all kinds of interesting things happening on-screen, I was often bored. The main problem was that these interesting things were happening to characters that I never came to care much about. Not that Nolan didn’t try: DiCaprio’s character, Cobb, is given a back-story meant to solicit empathy and deepen his motivations, but somehow it just never quite moved me.

            

The problem is that Inception is painted on a very bleak canvas and Cobb’s back-story is fairly grim as well. Call it a cheesy narrative trick if you’d like, but it’s much easier for me to pull for someone trying to find his way back to joy than simply a lighter shade of depression. I like joy, but that’s just me.

           

This is in no way meant to imply that Inception is a bad film. It simply isn’t the flick I was hoping it would be, especially in the wake of a string of thoroughly underwhelming Summer releases. There’s plenty of violence of a non-gory sort and a stray expletive here and there, so there’s little cause for offense. It’s simply a mildly-thrilling thriller that I had been hoping for more from. I give Inception four sleepy cows.