Inception (2010)
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Overall Grade: B-
Story: C-
Acting: A-
Direction: A-
Visuals: A
When crap is the norm, mediocrity will be king
by Bob J (movies profile) Jul 19, 2010
132 of 238 people found this review helpful
We've gotten to the point where a film that wanders remotely off the reservation stuns and wows us and leads us to believe it is great. "Inception" isn't a terrible movie. It is certainly better than anything else Hollywood has to offer this year. Neither, however, is it great.
Chris Nolan has shown us the future of big budget movies for adults-- A slightly intellectual idea is stretched and padded with explosions and intense chase scenes, put together at a pace so quick we don't notice that there is just barely more substance than the average movie carries. I don't mean to bash "Inception" too much. It is an enjoyable movie that will sweep anyone with half a brain into its narrative. Once the viewer has given in to "the ride," he or she will be transfixed for the duration of the film. "Dark Knight" demonstrated this a couple of years ago. Nolan takes that nearly impossible-to-beat formula and pushes it to the maximum in this film.
Don't be fooled, however, into thinking there are original ideas at work here. Just as "The Matrix" was a clever mish-mash of a dozen great, but old, ideas, so too is "Inception." The ideas present here have been a part of science fiction for sixty years. The kind you read, not watch.
All that said, it is indeed refreshing to watch a movie not based on a comic book, not based on an old television show, and not a remake that never needed to be made in the first place. This is it, folks, the one blockbuster this summer that will be worth the money you set down for it.
Enjoy every minute of it. Who knows how long the next desert of garbage from hollywood will be before they offer us something mediocre once more that we can gaze at, like the zombies in Romero's "Day of the Dead" and say, "Wow! It's not a total piece of crap! Congratulations hollywood!"
