You managed to get in the first comment? .. Well, there's only one thing I can say to that.

You're in my spot, sir.

I have to disagree that this is like the Matrix, because honestly when you really boil down what the Matrix is all about, it's a Marxist dream of a film. Can you really call Inception a Marxist film? and how exactly would you make that argument? I guess maybe in some extremely roundabout way that might make some sense since the main character is trying to make a return back to his normal way of life, but with the Matrix you're talking an in-your-face style that you just don't see in Inception. That being said, obviously I'm not saying The Matrix is a bad movie, I'm just saying these two have only the vaguest of connections and the idea that one is heavily borrowing from the other is kind of grasping at straws. I mean they say that there are no truly original ideas, that everything borrows in some way from something else, but where do we draw the line for what is an inventive use of an old idea and what is just ripping an idea off? I think if anything Inception is an example of an inventive use of old ideas to create a new idea that is entirely original, if only based loosely on old ideas. Sometimes people read so deep into these things that they miss the forest for the trees.

Okay you caught on to what I did, lol

I know I've certainly had a dream within a dream before, its not just something fictional.

Just finished the whole review, and I agree that it's definitely worth watching even if you don't like it. This has cult classic written all over it, people are going to be talking about it for years. Very entertaining. I thought the explanations of the film you found were pretty damn good, too. It all fits, it just depends on what you want it to mean really, and that's what I liked about it — the movie can be and mean whatever you want it to. It's very ambiguous like that.

I can understand not having monsters, but the most terrifying monsters (to me at least) are fellow human beings acting completely unrestrained

Same here.

In fact, I know there has been at least one occasion that I had a dream where I kept waking up from dreams I was having within the dream. (confusing, yes)

I really can't agree with make the subconscious projects into monsters and other supernatural creatures. By making those dreams fairly realistic it does make the blur between reality and the dreams very ambiguous. The only thing that show us its a dream is the gravity shifts and Cobb's additions but other than that it would be hard to tell if you're in reality or a dream.

Personally I never wanted to even see abnormal things, even after seeing it a second time I was still okay with the somewhat reality-based dreams.

Actually, no, it doesn't only happen in movies. I've had dreams within dreams. I doubt it's nearly as uncommon as you think. When you take into account they are augmenting the experience with some sort of undisclosed chemical compound, I roll with it.

Did Scarlett say “if you don't agree with me you're not going to get any booty tonight”? lol

In all fairness Spoony the complaint you spent the most time dwelling on boils down to “I'd like to see more” and assuming that's what you're most hung up about you kind of have to admit that that's sort of in the movies favour.

Insofar as interpreting the film as an allegory I sort of saw it as a moderately nihilistic observation of the nature of a stoic and rational masculinity being subverted by the irrational and emotional parts of ourselves. Though understanding it as a commentary on filmmaking itself is both perfectly valid and perhaps a little illuminating as to the process Nolan goes through in creating films.

I find your comments about the lack of unbelievable dreamlike imagery a little strange. Should I assume you were in the bathroom for the hallway fight scene and the disintegrating city?

Also @Thom_not_Tom although I agree that it was for the best to not bother with an explanation of the specific technology the basic idea of the machine isn't that far-fetched. It's basically technology induced psychic powers which would require (at least in the context of the suitcase device used in the films) remotely given and very percise fMRI scans of each user in the dream and a very powerful computer to interpret and put out the corresponding stimuli. It would probably function much like a computer network with the dreamer acting as the host or server with everyone else logging on to interact. Michio Kaku P.H.D. has written about very similar implementations on of this idea and it's variation before (his book Physics of the Impossible is a must read) and I'm sorta assuming Nolan's a fan actually.

It's far from a balls to the wall action movie. The preds play grab ass with the humans. It was outright bullshit, just like the AvP movies, they were BS as well

I don't think he would. I'm saying what I would do with a sequel. Or even a set of books based in the same universe.

Liked this review a lot. Hope you do a more spoiler heavy follow up review down the line when you've had more time to digest it.

Yes, AVP sucked but have you seen the first two Predator films? If you saw those two and thought they sucked then yes sir, I am wrong about you. However, if you did not see those two films and felt this way and thought they were still similar to AVP. Sir, you need a hug.

That aside, as a fan of those two Predator films to the point it makes me hate those bastard Alien bitches, I finally got a sequel. I finally got a sequel to two films that I love . That's what it's all about right there for me anyway.

I like this review Spoony, some of your reviews have a very negative aspect to movies I actually really like but here you sound like your at the same level as I am. I actually thought you would hate this movie cause I thought you would find plot holes in here I didn't even think of. I really liked this movie, I thought it was a very well crafted all be it a bit flawed like I think my major problem was with the score and understanding Ken Wantanabe. But all around those are very small gripes.

That analysis of the movie is brilliant and PLEASE post a link to that site and that analysis cause I was really liking that way of thinking about the movie. I usually don't like looking at analysis, I feel people are some times looking for deeper meaning in a movie when there really isn't any (One of my big problems with Evangellian) I saw one for this movie about how it deals with Christ and how Leonardo DiCaprio is Jesus and is gonna wake us from our dreams, and that shit was just as dumb as it sounds. So PLEASE again post that link I think people would appriciate it.

Also one last note, if you want a movie that deals with dreams and deals with nightmares and the total fucked up shit you would find in a dream go watch an anime movie called “Paprika”. Yes it's anime but it is able to do stuff that live action movies could only hope to do with dreams. It's a fucking crazy movie that you should really check out and talk about as a follow up to this :)

I have seen the first 2 predator movies. First one amazing. Second movie was a bit meh but still entertaining.

Any additions to the Alien and Predator universe in recent memory have just been boring. Nothing to them, no substance to make me say 'YES! This is good! Good story, special effects, actors. I can watch this again'

Sadly they don't. Mabye I went in to watch it with too high expectations??? Mabye, but still I was bored while watching it, the story was not explained at all, the special effects looked like they were done with a stock package of adobe after effects and the predators looked like they were kids in halloween costumes.

waking up in a dream is a common end result of lucid dreaming. you are aware that you are dreaming but your brain is basically halfway between awake and asleep. if you start waking up you wake up. if you start going back to sleep you wake up in your dream.

Actually, I've had quite a few dreams-within-dreams before, they can happen. ^-^

Spoony, the Matrix is just Ghost in The Shell with a hollywood budget. The anecdote is the Wachowski brothers even described their intentions to the producer as real-life GITS.

As for revolutionizing sci-fi, man, dude. Just no. Maybe movie sci-fi, but you could've revolutionized that with a stale fart. Come call me when Dragon's Egg gets on the big screen, or The Last Question, or something that is honest-to-god interesting. Not mysterious-because-they-tell-you-nothing bullshit, but questions that will leave to you stumped or intrigued for days.

As for Inception itself, classic soft science junk but with some decent action scenes. Good, but not revolutionary. I mean come on, the dream architect? Let's just put that right next to Macro-viruses and Maldis on the big pile of stupid sci-fi shame and move on.

What you wanted out of the movie didn't seem to fit Nolan at all. If some troll or storm-trooper just popped up screen, I wouldn't know what the hell I was watching.

…and honestly, Nolan's Inception sounds better than Spoony's Inception. =P

It had some interesting messages, like how an idea can be so infectious and contagious.. like the woman who believed the only way out of the dream (which was supposed to be real life) was to kill yourself. And if you think about how cults brainwash people, it's not hard to believe how deadly an idea can be. It's also interesting to think about what more could be done with this idea of Inception (planting an idea in someone's head)… for example, you know motivational speakers? How when you go to one of those meetings, or say you had a one-on-one session with the speaker, suddenly you can turn your whole life around or get out of a depression? Well, imagine what they could do with Inception.. it's kinda scary to think.. but they could change your fundamental beliefs on anything (depending of course on how strong your ming is)… truly fascinating concepts in this movie. Only flaw was it was unnecessarily long.. and I agree, it went one layer too deep… the whole snow fortress should've been shortened at least.. the intensity wore thin after a while. And yes, I was thinking the same thing, aren't dreams strange experiences normally? Where was the strange, bizarre, dreamlike occurences? Far and few between. But maybe that was intentional and by design of the architect. Also, remember when that guy said “dream bigger” and pulled out a grenade launcher? Well, then could they do things like summon up a helicopter or something like that ala the matrix? Well, it was enjoyable over all, and I will definitely be watching it one more time to try to fully understand it.

Just a quick comment spoony regarding your comment that it was the first time collective dreaming was put on film. It has been done at least a couple times before in the nightmare on elm street series. This was done however through mass hypnosis as well as one characters ability to pull others into their dream. From my understanding that isn't what happens here however just a note that it has been explored in movies before keep up the good work.

I'm actually excited enough about this film that I stopped watching this review as soon as you said there may be spoilers, an I'm normally able to enjoy films reguardless of spoilers. I'm going to see this film this week and honestly this is the first film where every single YouTube critic I know liked it so far.

Yeah, Mal was very nightmarish, as were the projected people who stared when something seemed strange… but what Noah was getting at, and I tend to agree, is that in dreams, things usually seem to behave/appear in an odd way.. or odd things happen.. things that are out of place or borrowed from a figment of your imagination.. like if you read a book or played a video game and then those things you saw or read, somehow appear in your dream, typically in an anachronistic way, where you have different realities converging… so what he was criticizing was essentially “how can a dream appear so normal” …and I think it's a valid critique because they never really explain why that is. Sure, the architect can construct a world for the dreamer, but his/her subcounscious fills in the gaps, so to speak… so then, why don't more bizarre things occur as a result of that? I think the answer is that, then nothing would make sense in the movie, and the audience would not be able to follow. But still, he has a valid point. It's not so much that he wants to see big monsters or strange things happen, he's saying that it doesn't really make sense and it makes you wonder and question why everything in the dream world conforms so closely to reality and doesn't stray. The bad guys are so generic and are always chasing them down with machine guns… what if the cillian murhpy character had a fear of spiders? Wouldn't then it makes sense that maybe giant spiders started to appear everywhere and attack them? Something like that.

Well I can understand what you're saying Spoony, but I think that if shit got crazy then it would make Cobb's job tougher. It seemed to me that the architects job in this movie was to keep shit from getting too crazy. That the dream in fact had to be realistic enough so that they could steal the information that they needed. Yeah I thought that as first. That I'd love to see some crazy stuff happening. Two headed dragons, unicorns with laser rifles, Hunter S. Thompson as a lizard. All that would be great. Though I think that the mind would guard itself even more if it knew it was in a dream. The point of their job was to convince the mind that it wasn't a dream but in fact reality until the person woke up. That's at least what I think.

I actually had a dream within a dream. It was fucking weird, I “woke up” and realised I had cum in my pants. Then I really woke up and I didn't actually have cum in my pants. Weird.

I don't think putting more information about the machine will help to understand the movie. If I can make a comparison with a movie is Videodrome, and I think you watched it(you have the poster in your room, so I presume you have seen and liked the movie). Cronenberg gave vague information about the reason why the character, Max Renn, have all this hallucination, how he can manipulate reality, or how a television signal create a tumour in the brain. Actually Cronenberg created a scene where a character explain everything; they created a night-vision google, but the machine was flawed, and created brain damage to the user and to them the possibility to deform the world through they own hallucination, or something like that. Why actually Cronenberg cutted that segment, was for the simple fact it was to much information, and so the world created in the movie become less flexible, and thus the suspension of disbelief was harder to perform. A plot hole is not this, a hole is when the segment can be explain and hurt the logic of the movie; this happen in the movie who go against the rules they created(borrowed if is a realistic film).

Nolan do the same, he gave the minimal information to be sure the world he create is believable and also flexible; which is the basis also for the dream in the film, the point is to create a world where the dreamer found like the real world, because the character of Dicaprio need to stole information in their spirit, he need a solid world along for this. If the world fall apart the dreamer will awake, and the information will be lost.

About the gunmen and the nightmares, I would say is from the perspective from the mains character. The character of Dicaprio is afraid of gunmen and the corporations, or from Ellen Page and being a young women she probably afraid that a man attack her.

My only problem is the time in the dream. I accept the fact that the time will seem to go slower when your dreaming(in a certain way is true), but the whole expansion by layer of reality…this was a case of to much informations, and raise question about the mental ageing and the consequences.

Loved this movie.

Can't understand how people couldn't follow this movie. I had no problem following it.

Noah. Watch Jacob's Ladder. You will be glad you did.

Sorry Spoony but I'm rather disappointed in this review. You came off way too confused on whether or not you liked or disliked the film. Which wouldn't be a big deal only your reasoning for disliking it came off rather childish to me.

You complained about the length of the movie. Really? The length? I thought you were above that kind of shallow nit-picking. Especially since you made it clear you were enjoying the movie up until you talked about it with Scarlett once you left the theater.

Your complaints on lack of fantastical elements, while not ungrounded, were out of place. I mean really, does the movie score lower just because we didn't see stormtroopers riding unicorns? Yes it's in a dream but does that immediately mean things have to be completely random? Not to mention the whole reason why it was based in more modern real world settings was because they wanted to subtly plant an idea into the mind of Cillian Murphy's character. Had a dragon flown by it would have ruined the whole plan.

As for explaining the tech, again, seemed out of place. You admit yourself that it would have bogged the movie's pace yet you come off as using that as a reason to give it a low score. Plus many movies don't explain tech or elements and it doesn't hamper the story. Look at the original Star Wars movies, we got little background to how lightsabers work or the force and it didn't take away from the narrative. In fact when the prequels tried explaining it that only ruined the ideas, it didn't enhance them.

All in all Spoony maybe you should have figured out an actual stance on this movie before posting a review since you go back and forth so much and your reasons for wanting to not like it seem almost like desperate attempts just so you can hate it.

I agree. I remember reading some guy's allegory on Children of Men, claiming it was one big anti-homosexual message.

I disagree with you about the movie needing “dream-like” imagery. The characters don't invade someone's dream to find information – they create a dream for their victim -and then enter it – so they can find the information that they want. The point is that the dream is as realistic as possible so the victim isn't aware that they are in a dream.

Also, I think another reason why they don't add more fantastical elements: The extractors are seeking specific information; by creating a realistic setting it is much easier to locate the desired info. In a realistic setting, “special” info would probably be kept in a safe, etc. – so the victim subconsciously puts the “special” information in a safe in the dream setting. Also in a realistic setting, you'd imagine “security” to be dudes toting guns, not giants or orcs. If you threw the victim into “Lord of the Rings Land,” what represents a safe? The extractors want the environment to be as predictable as possible to accomplish their mission. So, I think the dreams had to be in a realistic setting for the sake of the plot.

“It's his wife's top so he wouldnt know”

Ok I am sick of this bullshit. He held it while in real life, while he was training his architect. This means he knows and the only other person who knows is dead and only exists in his recreation of things. That means its a perfect totem. No one else knows. Drop it.

Spoony who was that reviewer that explained it like that? I'd really love to read the review for myself and follow him as well.

I tried to have a discussion about it with Dad afterward. As soon as the credits rolled I asked, “What do you think happened?” And he replied, “Does it matter?” And it took me awhile to get him to talk about the movie after that. And then it was more of a “What I think is right, who cares what you think?” sort of thing.

Warning possible TL;DR incoming.

Am I the only person who didn't find this movie confusing? That said I “got” Memento first time round too, maybe I just “get” Nolan's creative style. I dunno.

The biggest issue I have with Inception was that it spoiler-ed itself with the first 5 minutes. The second I recognized that beach again, I knew the best part of the ending. There where enough twists within that ending to make it a worthwhile watch, but the suspense was gone. I knew what was going to happen to DiCaprio's character long before the movie explained how, and while getting there was fun, it wasn't fun enough to hold the film.

I actually felt parts of the film where over explained. Blatant scenes of exposition are not very enjoyable. Actually it was one of the better exposition scenes in cinema. Of course, imho, that's like say “one of the better Uwe Boll films.”

Yeah, I went there.

I think it hurt my opinion of the film that I was expecting something brain-twister-y and thought provoking. It isn't. It's certainly deeper than your average summer blockbuster, but, again, not saying much. There's nothing particularly complex or indepth here. The plot devices range from over explained to bafflingly inserted with no reason.

That said, the overall premise is pretty interesting (if easily dismissed as a giant plot hole with a brief examination of psychological methods, well, depending on with psyc theory you subscribe to anyway) the cinematography and effects are excellent, and the acting ranges from above average to excellent.

Lower your expectations going into this film, and prepare to suspend disbelief and you should enjoy it well enough. Just don't expect to re-evaluate your outlook on life over this. It's a summer blockbuster.

6.5/10

I have dreams with in dreams all the time. I also can feel pain in my dreams but not to the extent of what pain feels like in real life. I have also had dreams where I am assuming the ground is rotating in some way because I can't keep my footing and keep fallin about but it wasn't because in reality the room was actually spinning so I can't explain that. Also, I never die in dreams and wake up it is always I am about to die and wake up, not actually die. Sometimes in my dreams I can figure out there dreams and wake myself up by simply closing my eyes real tight in and when I open them I wake up.
Here is something really wierd or just a coincidence. Me and my ex-girlfriend were sleping at her moms house and she was on the couch and I was on the floor right next to the couch and we both woke up at the same time laughing. We kind of just stared at eachother for a moment and asked why we were laughing. Here we both had a dream where we were both in it but couldn't remember the dream at all just that I was in hers she was in mine. She thought we shared a dream and went into detail about how it was possible. So maybe we shared a dream and something funny happened and we started laughing and our sub-concious like found out we were sharing the same dream and made us wake up. She explained it some how and it was weird and this was 2 years ago.

“Dream within a dream” is really not a movie concept, it happens. Not a common occurrence, at least to me personally, but it did happen to me a few times and it can be genuinely unsettling.

Spoony, I'm just not with you on this one. Your points are mostly valid, but a bit on the nitpicky side. I think the movie was rather smart, and pretty consistent as far as its internal logic goes. The exposition was done very well, the execution was near-perfect, and there were no loose ends in sight in the end; every single confusing bit can be explained with repeat viewings. Most importantly, there was no Matrix-like smart-assery; the movie never pretends to be smarter then it is nor it looks down on its audience, which I vastly appreciated.

I do agree that the dreams weren't really dreamlike, though; almost every single thing done by Lynch is a much closer representation of a dreamlike state then what Nolan does in Inception. But I think this has more to do with artistic vision then with it being an actual fault with the movie; if the dreams were more “Lynchian” on one level the movie would perhaps be more visually interesting, but it might hurt the actual story and plot (and the movie requires the viewer to follow carefully as-is).

Thereby, this movie isn't really about dreaming and what's real or not. It's about creativity, ideas and coming clean with yourself. It's totally not interesting if the world is real or not in that film.
*spoiler* The ending wasn't about reality but if Comb accepted his new ideas, his own inception.

FYI star wars wasn't far future, it was a long long time ago :)

Personally, I think it was more about guilt and loss and acceptance, especially in how Cobb saw their faces and then walked away from the top he had already started spinning.

He made the conscious decision to live and exist in this world, dream or no dream. There's something uplifting about that.

I think i found it

community[dot]livejournal[dot]com/ohnotheydidnt/49059535[dot]html

I don't understand why people get confused by this movie, I thought it was pretty straight forward.

I have had dreams within dreams, and woken up from dream into another dream. I have to say that it is some of the scariest shit I have ever experienced in my life, and it does warp and meld you sense of reality. Around the age of 12 I was a very constant and lucid dreamer. Knowing you are dreaming, able to sense the conscious world around you outside of your bed, and still be unable to wake up for what seems like months is truly disturbing.

I have not seen the movie, and I did like your review. As for the whole dream layers, it is a weird thing, and you really have to experience it to understand it. I look forward to watching this movie.

- Mingus

I agree with you that the movie had holes and incoherences. It couldn't spend time explaining how the technology worked ; introducing such a complex concept, it had to avoid being slowed by exposition, so they only explain the elements that affect the plot, the dream structure and functions. And it's true, it remains pretty simple and mundane in its basic imagery. It doesn't twist the world and change it radically, it only turns it in different directions with the shifting gravity and so forth.

But I think this was to keep a consistent aesthetic. The corporate espionage motif keeps the movie coherent, and if things had gone into sci-fi or nightmarish horror, I think the movie would have been all over the place. This team of thieves know what they're doing, this is a familiar environment, so a lot of the details don't need to be adressed. The characters already know how the dream works, so they already know how to work them, how to work with them.

And I think that's really the idea behind this movie : it's the work of a virtuoso, it's a puzzle or a maze. Nolan couldn't have given us this complex, tumbling storyline if his characters had to discover everything. He couldn't explain it to the audience that way, because then he would have no space or time to tell his story : the movie would have been enslaved to exposition. The cold, “real” aesthetic creates a very cerebral playground : there is imagination, but Nolan doesn't let his universe go out of bounds. He has to rein it in, keep it consistent or otherwise he can't craft this magnificent puzzle. Things can't be virtuous if they aren't under control, and I think that's why he didn't just go nuts with the nightmares and the fantasies.

But here comes what you said about this movie defining an era, starting something. All those missed opportunities you talk about are ideas for other stories. Nolan isn't the first guy to tell a story about dreams. But if Inception has enough of an impact, maybe we'll see movies explore those ideas that he couldn't. This movie is great, it knew what it wanted to do and it stuck to it, did it manificently. But it also opens the door to infinite possibilities, to further exploration of these concepts.

All the holes and incoherences of Inception only make me more interested in it. I don't know if Nolan did it intentionnally, but I don't care : it's a story that makes me want to see and tell more stories, and that's the best kind of story there is.

The whole walk in too someone`s dream thing reminds me of the 1980 movie Dreamscape. directed by Joseph Ruben.
If anyone hasnt seen its about two research scientist who hire a powerful psychic to go into the subconscious mind of troubled minded patients, alot of very weird stuff happens in the dreams, like one guy is slightly old and not very attractive, but the guys wife is very hot, and in the dream the wife is cheating on her husband with alot of people right in front of their kids and him, so long story short the psychic goes in this guys dream with him and trys to fix the problem.

Honestly Spoony when you say it's both remarkable and disappointing, you seem more glad for it, it's a great thing you want more but adding more to a film can often times make it worse or entirely change why it is good. The movie already set a bar what you are asking for is alternative content, ideas, and themes. I agree that with a plot like this Nolan could have taken any path and creative freedom.

There is indeed so much to say about this movie, personally I came with a few different “layers” of interpretation for the film but what I'd like to comment on is on something else, on that the fact that some people decide to concentrate on small and unimportant details and base their appreciation of the movie on that instead of the whole psychological and philosophical aspects that are being presented to them.
When the comparison to the matrix was done I thought, yes, this is exactly like the matrix, not in the sense of it is the same story but in the sense that the matrix was also misinterpreted (and subsequently ruined) like that. The matrix is NOT a story about the perils of building intelligent machines, is NOT a story about the perseverance of mind kind, and it is definitely NOT a story about Neo sent from the heavens to save us all. The Matrix was a great (not just very good, and not perfect but indeed great) movie because it was able to “popularize” a great philosophical question (the questioning of reality and what this means to us as a species and as individuals) and being “cool” about it, it used the action movie disguise and the special effects escorts to caught your attention and then when you were not looking it made you think. For that alone, the matrix deserves recognition. But some people just didn't get it. All they could see was 500 continuity errors on the movie, all they wanted was to see Neo being a bad ass superhero. That line of thought fueled two sequels, video games and some other media that could only focus on the characters, that needed to use and reuse the formula attempting to make more profit and they ended “dumbing down” the whole franchise. And this doesn't mean great stuff can't be done, the animated shorts from the Animatrix is a great example of good use of an existing universe full of possibilities (not nearly as deep as the movie but interesting and fresh). Now Inception could be facing the same fate, this is also a smart movie that invites you to reflect on more that the special effects you are watching on screen, it almost begs you to see beyond the suspense plot and into yourself. Yes, a new and vast universe has been created, where those star wars, medieval or nightmarish scenarios could be presented to us, but just like with the matrix, that is just a sub product (as cool as it may be) of a great work of art.
If you are looking for just an action movie, or a visual treat, or a complete logical argument; you will have a good time but this may not be the best choice of movie for you, if you can see past that you might find that on a movie that bets it foundation on philosophy and psychology, there is no “right” answer it is all for interpretation and discussion (as Spoony can testify) and that, is always a marvelous way to spend our time.

I have experienced a dream within a dream. A very small one but anyway. I woke up in the dream and went to drink water. Suddenly I REALLY woke up. And felt kinda weird.

I've had a dream with in a dream before and it sucked, I was stuck in a nightmare trying to wake myself up only to wake up and realize I was stilllll dreaming… finally my girlfriend woke me up because I was screaming in my sleep. Hopefully, not all dreams with in dreams are like that.

I disagree about the nightmare part, it would have been a pretty pointless subplot (although cool) it also might have increased the silliness factor or just something strange like that, i don't think it would have worked.

I wish they had tackled dreams of significance more i think, like suggestive dreaming or very clear lucid dreaming, in a lucid dream you can control just about anything, however that isn't really the point of the movie.

They are trying to create their own suggestive dream, they are trying to get information or change peoples minds and there is really no practical reason to showing those really insane moments, although one could argue that the “training” scene is more like a lucid dreaming concept.

Overall i was super please with this movie but what would you expect from a Matrix fan ;p

Yeah, I've also had dreams within dreams, usually when I'm trying to wake up from a nightmare and I end up waking up in another dream, but I've also just had regular dreams where I “woke up” but was still dreaming. It's been extremely rare though.

Also, the idea of going into dreams doesn't seem that original, especially when you've seen “Paprika”, where their dream technology makes more sense, and they end up having to stop someone misusing that technology to wreck havoc in the collective subconscious, which bleeds into reality and becomes indistinct.

Fantastic review Spoony. I LOVED Inception. It has so many ideas that I see in video games now that it made me love the film even more. Level designs, certain ideas from games like Silent Hill 2 with DiCaprio's character and an action set piece that reminded me of Shadow Moses in MGS or a level in CoD: Modern Warfare 2. I wonder if Nolan knew about those games?

Btw, I've had a dream within a dream a few times in my life. So it's not a purely movie thing. It's weird and surreal but also a very cool feeling if you've ever experienced it.

I don't quite get why you would want an explanation on how the technology of it all works, since none of it's real you know for a fact it would just get the “Star Trek” treatment with endless amount of techno-babble that I don't think would work here with the amount of exposition the movie already has.

How it worked on the outside was what mattered, we needed to hear that stuff in order to understand WTF was going on in the third act, and that's when this movie was at it's strongest.

As for the argument of delving into fantasy, I don't quite understand either what would be the point of a gremlin or stormtrooper popping out of nowhere, as film geeks we'd appreciate the reference but in the story like this it's unnecessary and would come across as being cheap since it wouldn't mean anything.

Something along the lines of faceless projections on the other hand would, and I agree a detail like that would have made the film even better.

**Spoilers**

I have only seen this movie once, but as I think about the movie, it all seems to point to one thing: every thing from the beginning to the end of the movie was all one dream.

Why do I think this? I remember every single scene beginning suddenly. Cobb is suddenly talking to his father or suddenly meeting his friend. Strange things happen in the “real” world (such as the technologies that make going into dreams possible) without explanation or question. Ariadne (Page) doesn't even ask how this stuff works and she had just heard about it. The meager explanation that was given was vague and glossed over.

Also everyone has just a first name, for the exception of a few characters. And those characters are Cobb's family and the Fischers et.al, whose names were possibly based on real people gotten from any newspaper if they were as big as they supposedly were, you know, owning a large “energy” company and all.

The biggest clue for me was the coincidences that came up, such as Cobb accepting a job that only he has ever done, and at the same time conveniently exercises his issues.

All these things lead me to believe we have never seen anything outside Cobb's dream.

Hm. People keep saying that you have to really pay attention to this movie otherwise you'll get lost, and I don't see that. I mean, yeah, you have dream within a dream within a dream within a dream sequences, but they're pretty well explained before and after they go in what's going on and what's happening and what layer they're in and so forth, so idk, I found it far less complicated than everyone says.

Agreed that they don't explain any of this technology, but honestly, there's almost no way they could that would make it any kind of plausible. What got me was that when they go to recruit Ellen Page, and then again when the infiltrate Cillian Murphy's mind, that this tech, apparently, isn't all that secret. Page's character just sort of swallows it from the beginning, and you find that apparently it's fairly common for powerful CEOs to be trained to resist this sort of thing. So that leaves you with the question like, well, does everyone know about this or not? Is this supposed to be our world or some sort of alternate universe where tech like this exists? I found that pretty irritating.

And yes, yes yes yes, this whole movie was a waste of a very intriguing concept. I was really disappointed that they had this great idea, in-movie this great tech, and used it to…steal businessmens' secrets. I mean, really? Was there no more interesting application for this that Nolan could think of to put on film than corporate espionage? It really made the whole sci-fi concept very boring for me. And then they went and turned the film itself into a sort of Ocean's Eleven-style over-the-top caper film, with even less at stake. Like you said, there was so much they could have done with this film and the concept, and they just didn't go there. That is my biggest problem with Inception as a whole. Well, that and the pretentious working-out-Cobb's-issues melodrama.

lol brazen plot holes indeed, what a great description for that. Yeah, the more I think about it, the more I think (or at least hope, otherwise Nolan would get knocked down a few pegs in my book) that the hugely unbelievable issues, like Watanabe's magical phone call of freedom, are all evidence of the whole thing being a dream. I'm inclined to see it that way, just from reflection and discussion with other people. Actually, when you think back on it like that, all these huge plot conveniences seem like really obvious clues that it was Cobb's dream.

Anyway, interesting review. Glad to see someone not caught up in the Inception-worship, tbh I thought it was pretty overrated, pretentious as hell, and a damn waste.

Only some words about the “dream” concept of the plot: Dreams -or dreaming ability of the brain to be more accurately- is the platform for the designer -or the architect; however you wish to call Ellen Page's character. There are certain rules to populate this dream environment or mechanism related to the task in hand: Trick the victim (Cillian Murphy's character or somebody else). The technology allows them to populate this dream platform with everything including Star Trek type of futuristic environment (or Renaissance Italy, whatever!), yet this wouldn't fit the task. Similarly, if some monstrous creatures or not-suitable-for-task type of “unrealistic” faceless men were popping up within the designed environment, again, this would ruin the operation.

For this aim, Leonardo's character (Cobb) defines how much ingredient should be involved. For instance, memory is not allowed for a good reason: Victim can see himself having a party and that would really ruin the operation too. Brain was roughly separated into three main sections: Conscious compartment (one can evaluate environment and relations with being aware of what's going on depending on inputs and outputs, and make decisions); Subconscious compartment (full of information on shapes, faces, colours, voices and their billions of combinations); and finally Memory compartment. Memory is not allowed for the task, but as we can observe in Cobb's private dream, it can be added when it is desired. For the job however, they only needed Conscious and Subconscious compartments.

If we go back to designer (or architect), he or she doesn't design only the environment, but also allows certain type of subconscious elements to involve the environment. That is to say, if guns and human figures are allowed, dreamer can not see monsters or faceless characters as it is prevented by software. It's like a designed computer game if you like; you can not see monsters if game designer doesn't allow you to see it in -let's say- a car race game. Not because software technology doesn't allow it; it's because it's against the concept of car race. Something like that. So if your brain starts to feel some defence, the triggered characters must take the form allowed by the type of “dream”: Guns are allowed, people are allowed, so your fear will take these forms. Simple as that.

So they don't want you to experience your free dreams: They use the dreaming ability of your brain and populate it with carefully selected parts of your own brain, plus their designed environment to get some information.

I dont know if anyone mentioned this movie im not going thru the comments to look, but check out the movie Dreamscape.

Carl Jung wrote the book on collective consciousness, so nothing new there. And Satre dictated the existentialism inherent in a subjective reality which no one can verify from an in-universe perspective (e.g. you cannot confirm that the people you see are not projections of your mind, or that your memories weren't implanted into your head five minutes ago). Hell, Magritte painted the damn paradoxical contradictions of reality and suggested the variable nature of a dream. So it's not like the idea is original. In fiction, Ian Banks and Philip K Dick have been writing about this stuff for decades (past tense for Dick). I mean, you want to know the meaning of mindscrew, read VALIS, Players of Titan, or even just Ubik and you're never going to read a book or watch a movie without looking at the possible paradoxes and falsities of a seemingly concrete reality.

So, original it may not be, and the entire collective-dream-machine thing was just hand-waved, but this movie was really good. The first line of connection I drew was with the matrix, but that's okay, because it didn't rip-it-off. This movie took an old idea and it re-packaged it to illustrate it in an entirely new and creative way. Personally, I have had many dreams within dreams where the entire time you're just trying to wake up from consecutively bizarre scenarios, and I spend most of the time trying to figure out what is real and identify what isn't, but that's just me, and my nightmares are always pretty damn fucked up. However because of that I can really understand and believe where the creators are coming from. On closer inspection, the entire thing does kinda fall apart, but BECAUSE it's about dreams, you can somehow feel like that's okay, because dreams don't necessarily make sense.

I mean, a lot of this movie relies on ideas and concepts that just sort of tie it together, and I agree that there was a lot of potential for imaginative nightmarish mindscrew that was missed, but still, it was pretty damn good, and the minimisation of any out-there components did lend itself to blurring the lines between consecutive versions of reality, encouraging doubt on the nature of not one but all of them. It was enthralling, engrossing, character-driven, showed the depths the human mind can succumb to, and warped the boundaries of perspective reality as observed by the viewer. Compared to something like rape-your-mind-Twilight where you could slowly feel your brain dying as you watched it, this was the fucking Mona Lisa on crack. Was it ground-breakingly brilliant like the matrix? Not to the same extent, but it did explore new areas and ideas, and its execution was top-notch. Again, it explored the idea that the nature of reality does not matter as long as the subject accepts the reality presented. As long as the belief of reality is in place, the reality cannot be falsified or vindicated within the eyes of those that perceive it, and hence whether it is a dream or a simulation, as long as it is consistent to the individual, the objective reality is in fact irrelevant. It was definitely one of the better movies I've seen this year – maybe even the best.

And yes, I know I have ranted on for way too long, but this review was really good, the movie was really good, and both got me thinking… so, uh, there.

//end rant (woah… I really went on for waaaay too long…)

Hi, Spoony, I just saw this film. I can confirm that I have had dreams within dreams. I've dreamed that I went to sleep and woke up and was going about my normal life, and then suddenly realize it's a dream and try to wake up and dream that I again wake up, and am again going about doing normal life stuff… and then wake up again. This happened one time when I unintentionally fell asleep while waiting to go out with someone, and so I think that caused me to dream that suddenly the person was there and woke me up and I went about doing things like I was expecting. I've also dreamed that I was having an out of body experience — I saw myself sleeping in my bed, got up, and went off to explore. So, I didn't find the dream within a dream part of the film weird. I've also had the dream where a stranger comes to tell me that I'm dreaming and that he has to tell me some secret (common theme in dream movies, I think). I've also dreamed false memories and that I'd been doing stuff for a long period of time — kind of a feeling of expansion of time, without really having it. Time does expand a *little* in dreams, but not that much. What I really had an issue with in this film was the idea that dreams within dreams can expand time exponentially. That just seems ridiculous and without any foundation. Also, the extreme details of the dreams was something questionable to me. For me, dreams are usually vague emotions or ideas, and not extremely specific. All the details are kind of blurred over. Regardless of the dream science problems, though, this was a really enjoyable, engaging movie.

Chiming in with having dreams within dreams. I’ve had several, but the one that had the greatest impact on me was one where I just kept waking and waking in the same place, which was the place where I was actually sleeping. I got up, felt something was not right and decided to walk out of the room, but just before I reach the door I awake where I started from. I can’t tell how many times this happened but at one point I remember being actually conscious (?) without being able to fully open my eyes or move my body at all, before blacking out and eventually waking up for realsies.

My 'russian doll' dreams have often been characterized by this very strong link to actuality, where the setting of the dreams is the actual place where I’m physically sleeping – which makes them quite unnerving. I wake up, walk around, experience something weird (seeing through a window a huge UFO slowly hovering over a nearby lake, etc.) go calmly back to bed, only to wake up exactly where I just went into bed in the dream! Was it real? WTH? Haven’t had these for a while though. Sadly.

As to Spoony bemoaning the way the movie limits itself to rather mundane dreams and consequently to very down to earth vistas and inhabitants: my initial thought after the movie was that this might have been what kept the experience so coherent throughout. The effects budget could thus be focused on the key scenes (and by Xenu were they convincing), while minimizing the risk that some sort of CGI-mongrel would kick the viewer in the teeth right through the fourth wall.

I’m almost certain the darker areas of the psyche and their potentially visually shocking manifestations were considered in planning, but were buried in the process in search of coherence. Keeping the visuals rooted in reality works to downplay the idea that you are actually viewing someone’s dream as a moviegoer. I believe this just added to the immersion – when you’re in a dream, do you really know that you are in a dream? No, it feels, sounds and looks real to you. This is why the dreams portrayed in the movie needed to be as relatable to the audience as possible, balancing a fine line between fantasy and reality – I say that was the whole point, to engage the audience on this tightrope act through this subtlety in presentation, all to elicit that powerful groan that pierces the silence of the theatre* as the final frame of the movie snaps into darkness.

Rotten or fresh, as mentioned, the discussions sparked by this movie have been easily worth the (pricey) admission. Apologies for if not sense in making of post time much of late.

*personal moviegoing experience

I see your point about nightmarish imagery, but honestly I found pretty much every scene where Mal appeared to be utterly terrifying. I mean, the first time Ariadne encounters her, SHE KILLS ARIADNE. Second time she appears, she TRIES to kill Ariadne. Literally all of my hairs were standing on end whenever she appeared. Much more nightmare imagery and I would have died!

The reason the machine was hand-waved was because Nolan remembers the first rule of storytelling; it's the characters, stupid. There are way too many sci-fi works where the writer feels he just has to drop the mechanics of how his spaceships work into the middle of what should be an exciting climactic chase scene-David Weber, I'm looking at you-instead of just getting on with the story. If the characters accept that it works, then so should the audience, unless you're doing a really bad job. The dreaming mechanics had to be explained, but the way the machine worked was more or less irrelevant to the plot. You can sneak in stuff like than in books, but it's harder in films.

Honestly Spoony, I have experienced a dream within a dream before and it really freaked me out. This film is suprisingly accurate as to the emotional effects dreams within dreams have, especially when it comes to memory.

Well, this is why I didn’t really mind the hand-waving of the machine. Because it was given a reasonable explanation and left at that, when obviously the movie is about the characters and their perception of a subjective reality and the true definition of an objective reality within the parameters of a universal consensus (well, when I say universal, I mean within this particular group of people… ah, you get the point). The entire movie itself is treated with a dream-like quality which ALLOWS for the ideas to somewhat fall apart under closer inspection. As I said, I really liked this movie and I can completely understand the reason why they hand-waved things the way they did. Personally, I would have liked to see more about the mechanics, but as I said above, it’s not a deal-breaker for me.

However, I have to disagree with you on the idea that “if the characters accept that it works, then so should the audience”. That only works when the setting and point of view are so consistently integrated into the characters and storytelling that their accepting the concept is relayed to the audience. There has to be an in-context understanding BY PROXY. Otherwise, you just end up with pretty much every crappy horror/slasher film or Uwe Boll movie ever made.

Don’t get me wrong, I fully understand the concept of maintaining suspense and not interrupting it with a mechanical explanation (whether in books or movies), but I really don’t think Weber’s placement of exposition is THE critical failing in his books (although I haven’t read that many, to be truthful).

I really don’t think that the movie needed more explanations. I was expecting some about the technology but then kinda lost interest in it being so into the movie that I didn’t have time to think about anything else.

I felt that some scenes were pretty nightmarish : in the bar, but also when Marion Cotillard spots Page in the lift looking at her. But it’s true they probably could have done more in that direction, I guess Nolan wanted to keep an appeal for broad and large audiences (not always a bad thing).

You didn’t talk about the actors. I thought they were all pretty good. The fact that Cotillard was associated with the French song she sung in her previous movie was quite weird for me… Also, Di Caprio turns out to really be a great actor, but i use to hate him… Times are changing !

No…this film is NOT original. Paprika did this 5 years before. And I’m sure the idea was done before this, too.

And four layers of dreams is really not that complicated. Why does everyone think it’s so hard to follow? It’s simple. Why people think that this film is complicated, I’ll never know.

Yeah, that allegory is pretentious as hell. I hate it when people try to look into the deeper meanings of films, because it just feels like they are grasping. Like what you said in Scott Pilgrim review; honestly.

So, yeah…Inception was good, but not all that amazing.

I’m surprised. I’ve just searched (haven’t read all of them) the 241 comments and there’s no single mention of Sandman.
Spoony, I highly recommend reading it, Neil Gaiman’s master piece, but if you don’t feel like reading all the 70 issues of the comic, well, read issue number 1. In the end of the first issue Sandman curses a man to eternal awakening (or sorts, I’ve read it in portuguese), so he’s having a nightmare, wakes up scared and figures out he’s still in a nightmare, wakes up, and go on like this throughout eternity.

About the movie: Boring, long, noisy and unecessarily violent. All this only to cover the fact that there isn’t actually much of a story there.
Bad action scenes. Really bad. The whole snow scene is a mess, everyone is dressing the same (what makes sense but is a bad direction decision, that’s a dream, the director could have chosen anywhere else in time and space), no one knows what’s going on but at that point the audience is so tired, so deaf so bored (and that truck never stops falling -man, that’s boring!) that no one really cares.

Could have been great. But I agree that the after-theater discussions it has generated is definitely the best part of it

You all watched this movie through?!

My respect, I only endured 9 minutes, and 16 minutes in a second try because I pushed myself to be interessted.

I think the reason they didn’t go “all out” with the dreams was (through the movie’s logic) if things are too weird, the person will realize that they’re not dreaming, and that it’s not their dream, and then they’ll wake up. I could be wrong, though, that how I understood it. Since they’re regulating the dream and can’t let him know that he’s dreaming, then they have to be realistic. But you have a point. It would be awesome if they made a version of Inception where they went into untainted dreams, just popped into the guy’s head while he was asleep and found themselves in the middle of the worst nightmare ever. Also, it was released in 3D, but I don’t think I could handle it. xD (I actually loved this movie, but that’s just me…)

I pretty much agree with everything in this review. Allegorical or not, I still think it’s a brilliant idea that fell short on execution with regards to the potential of dream-world surreality. They could have made much better use of dream-logic and the fact that for most people, dreams just make sense when you’re in them. You live in that moment and you don’t need any explanation for it because you just always have this sensation that reality is THIS and that’s how it is.

But you know, here’s a funny thing. When it comes to dreams within dreams… I had had those before once or twice in my life but nothing like the degree of stacking this movie portrayed. But dude… AFTER I watched this? I sure as hell did. And so to me the movie is successful if for no other reason than because not only did it captivate my curiosity as I watched it and after I watched it, it captivated my SUBCONSCIOUS and changed the dynamics of how I think when I’m not even aware or in total control of my thinking.

That’s some serious shit right there.

I mean, seeing this movie gave me a capacity to experience lucid dreaming — something I’d heard of and even researched and tried to do before but was never able to. Although my handful of experiences with lucid dreaming since then have worked very differently than this movie portrays the architects having the ability to do, hey…. maybe it IS like that for some people. And whether it is or isn’t… the very fact that just watching this movie changed the way my brain works… well, regardless of any other shortcomings, that right there is a jackpot ultimate A+++ success. A kind of terrifying one, because the dreams-within-dreams-within-dreams I had after seeing this were really very disorienting and left me feeling unsettled and paranoid for a couple of DAYS afterwards, but still, a success.

Easy way to summarize the movie is “Just watch the movie Inception ripped off, Paprika (Satoshi Kon) much like his other hit movie Perfect Blue (Black Swan)…

I love Spoony, but watching this review was maybe the first that left me in “pain” with a “come on man…” reaction.

My biggest problem with this movie was having too much knowledge on the topic. When you study cognitive sciences, you end up learning that you dream in real time. If you can’t ignore this information, the entire premise falls apart. In other words, if you count how long the dream lasted in the movie, they would all have pretty much awoken too late and died.

It’s a pretty Freudian-inspired film and the concepts are way past their expiry date.