Inception- Dreams Are So Much More Than Wishes

The heat in my non-air conditioned house got so bad last night that I was forced to take myself to the movies. So below are my Spoiler-free thoughts on Christopher Nolan's Inception, along with plenty of other nonsense.

First I'd like to note that this was really good. For a two hour and 22 minute movie, I did not once feel like it was moving slowly. Although it in no way deserves to be compared to Inception, Public Enemies, which I saw in theaters, was two hours and twenty minutes of falling asleep moments.

The idea was clever. The execution was fantastic. Leo's performance was great as expected.

Here's how I broke down the movie right afterwards, as far as organization. The first twenty minutes were there to eff your brain up. The next 40 minutes or so were the background and set up you needed to both understand what you just saw at the beginning of the film and what you were about to see in the rest of it. Then the final hour and twenty minutes worked as like a finale-esque double episode of television.

Those first twenty minutes or so were as confusing as all heck though right? It might not have helped that I went into this thing almost as fresh as possible. I can even remember watching the trailer with much detail. As they jumped around in time and space and consciousness and dreamspace throughout the beginning, it was freaking me out.* It was all worth it once I got a grasp on what was going on and how it was being done.

*The fact that it was the IMAX Experience didn't help with my freak out mode. This thing was awesome. My first IMAX experience with an actual movie. Gigantic curved screen...I felt like I was on Soarin' at Epcot during a couple of the trailers.

I'm not going to discuss specifics in this spoiler-free review, so I'll just say that the rest of this thing was done really well.

Most of the auxiliary characters didn't bring much to the table, other than being necessary to the final job. So just a few notes on the more notable players. For someone as highly touted as Leo is, I haven't seen much of his stuff. It's strange because I always love him when I do see his work. This was no different as I envied and sympathized for Cobb at different points of the work.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who I've grown to love mainly because of his unbelievable 'Make em Laugh' performance during his Saturday Night Live monologue, was good in this. As Jack stated to me last night, "I could have played JGL's role." He was responsible for the one comedic moment of the movie (kissing Ellen Page and then stating it was "worth a shot"), but other than that he was as straight as they come.

Speaking of Miss Page. I liked her. I wanna say this was the first I've seen her. I never got to Juno because it was getting hyped so hard and most people I talked to said it was vastly overrated. Here she was interesting if slightly dull.

After reading numerous tweets about how much people were going to be thinking about this movie on Friday. I have to say that I'm not in the same boat. I thought everything came together rather nicely at the end. I wasn't left with any questions, other than the spinning top at the end (which I absolutely feel was starting to wobble).

As far as other Nolan movies I've seen. After only one watch (which probably is not fair), I wouldn't put this above Dark Knight, Batman Begins or the Prestige. That's not to say that I didn't love it. Those three movies are probably all in my top 50 all time.

Good work once again Mr. Nolan. Here's hoping the third Batman installment is another great piece by you.

Couple other notes

-I can't believe that was Tom Berenger! (well I can believe it because I said it right when I saw him on screen) A lot has happened since Major League I guess.

-Michael Caine and Christoper Nolan go together like Lamb and Tuna Fish. Both Batmans, Prestige and Inception. A small role here, but always nice to see him.

-Ellen Page's character must have played a lot of Goldeneye on 64 with that giant snow world on the third level. How come we saw all these levels and not a single one in the movie was a beautiful, tropical paradise? What's wrong with these architects?