Inception

[Ghambit]

[pxib]

Okay sure... and it's nice that, unlike M. Night Shyamalan (or Orson Welles), Quentin Tarantino never cast himself in roles that demanded any more acting ability or charm than he could personally deliver. It's even nicer when he doesn't cast himself at all.

Purposeful bad filmmaking does not excuse bad filmmaking any more than purposeful poor writing excuses poor writing. There is no artistic reason not to satisfy the audience by implying danger, especially if there's an artistic reason for that danger to prove unreal. That the film's action scenes rarely surpass 'silly', and that they last long enough to inspire tedium, is a bug not a feature.

[Zetleft]

I cannot help thee with that

[Ghambit]

Look, if the action scenes were like your typical action flick, it'd break the movie.  THAT would be bad filmmaking. 

[pxib]

They didn't have to be typical... they just had to be fun to watch, like the gravity fight. The rest seemed perfunctory.

[Ghambit]

And that's exactly the way it'd happen in your mind.  "Perfunctory."  Repetitious.  Bland.  Over and over.  Even when "exciting" the moves will seem practiced and calculated or totally mishmashed; exactly why Arthur looked at times like an Agent and other times like a flailing fool.  Also why most of the projections were like automatons with sporadic moments of greatness.
 
The dreamspace rarely produces some John Woo movie in your mind.  That's not the way it works.  What YOU want is for the human subconscious to "on-the-fly" develop a fully fleshed out high-action sequence in perfect detail.  Yah, good luck with that.  Not gonna happen.

So, now that we've established the Rules... go back and watch the movie again and rethink your stance on the filmmaking quality.  The movie was fuckin ingeniously produced and directed for the exact reason that they lived within the rules of the mind the entire time while telling a great story.  And I'd say it's a lot more difficult choreographing flawed, yet believable sequences rather than just going for perfect action.

[Mosesandstick]

The way the dreamers always acted in the action scenes seemed a bit weird (not bad weird). They were very good at times, and my interpretation was that it was either it being a dream, or the way they visualise their actions in a dream. Something along those lines.

[AcidCat]

words

Even if the bland, repetitive action is a purposeful style (and I think you are being way too generous in that assessment, but whatever), it's still bland, repetitive action and it's not entertaining. Sure the zero-G fight was visually interesting, but that's as far as it went. It had the same core problem as the rest of the dream action - zero emotional investment in the outcome. First the fact that our crew is fighting ghosts takes away a lot of potential drama right there - there is no real antagonist. Secondly, why am I even rooting for the "heroes"? Why do I care what this businessman does with his company? Oh because I'm supposed to believe that this job is the only way Cobb can be with his kids again. Because he would somehow automatically be convicted of killing his wife if they ever tried him for it. Why am I supposed to care about Cobb and his kids? I never saw them together, never had the chance for any kind of emotional investment in that relationship. And I'm supposed to care about these people's welfare in the dream because they might drop into a "limbo" and be mentally stuck for years? I almost laughed when that came up, like, thirty seconds of expository dialogue to tell me I should care.

This movie is like an intricate, shiny machine that was built with care but has no actual function. I guess a certain kind of person just likes to watch the gears turn.

[proudft]

I think a lot of the blame for the action scene weirdness/blandness can be placed on the music.   I LIKE the soundtrack, but it was cranked way up in the mix and was sort of always thudding/droning away there instead of your typical action movie stuff.

Except the city chase in Mombasa - that had your normal movie music, and it seemed more exciting to me!

Anyway, if you doubt the music has such a big effect, imagine the Benny Hill Yakety Sax playing over the whole thing, and then think again.

[AcidCat]

I think a lot of the blame for the action scene weirdness/blandness can be placed on the music.   I LIKE the soundtrack, but it was cranked way up in the mix and was sort of always thudding/droning away there instead of your typical action movie stuff.

Yeah, the music became almost comically overblown at times, it was really distracting.

[Typhon]

words

Even if the bland, repetitive action is a purposeful style (and I think you are being way too generous in that assessment, but whatever), it's still bland, repetitive action and it's not entertaining. Sure the zero-G fight was visually interesting, but that's as far as it went. It had the same core problem as the rest of the dream action - zero emotional investment in the outcome. First the fact that our crew is fighting ghosts takes away a lot of potential drama right there - there is no real antagonist. Secondly, why am I even rooting for the "heroes"? Why do I care what this businessman does with his company? Oh because I'm supposed to believe that this job is the only way Cobb can be with his kids again. Because he would somehow automatically be convicted of killing his wife if they ever tried him for it. Why am I supposed to care about Cobb and his kids? I never saw them together, never had the chance for any kind of emotional investment in that relationship. And I'm supposed to care about these people's welfare in the dream because they might drop into a "limbo" and be mentally stuck for years? I almost laughed when that came up, like, thirty seconds of expository dialogue to tell me I should care.

This movie is like an intricate, shiny machine that was built with care but has no actual function. I guess a certain kind of person just likes to watch the gears turn.

I have (unconsciously) gone through phases in how I approached going to the movies.

0-18) Almost a complete lack disbelief, complete willingness to buy into whatever the movie wishes me to believe, strong desire to be engaged and immersed into the film.  Can watch nearly complete shit and find it entertaining.  The golden age of my movie-going experience, now that I think about it.
19-39) Small suspension of disbelief.  Increasing degree of smug discontent with film's lack of ability to draw me in.  Spend a significant amount of mental energy in trying to figure out where the plot twist was going to occur so as to prove to myself that I was smarter than the screen writer.  Can watch decent film and walk away feeling disappointed. The nadir of my movie going experience.

Eventually I asked myself, "are movies significantly worse then they were when I was young?".  The answer was, "no, actually they are quite a bit better, overall".  So then I asked myself, "Why am I wasting money trying to ruin my movie experience?"  Either I need to stop going to movies, or stop being so critical of movies - because I'm not being paid to be critical of movies, I'm paying to enjoy them.

40 till present) Concentrated suspension of disbelief.  Concentrated effort to not over-analyze plot, dialog, scene or acting ability.  A movie has crappy physics?  Let. it. go.

So, yeah, everything that you critique this movie about has validity.  If I had been trying to, I probably would have had a very similar experience to yours while watching this movie.  Instead, I feel like I got my moneys worth.   

[Tannhauser]

Well said.   Inception was a good movie.  If some folks want to seek some deeper meaning then good for them.  Personally I don't find it all that compelling.

Now if his kids had turned around and they had Twilight Zone pig faces and the movie ends with him screaming in horror, then THAT would have rocked!

 

[pxib]

And that's exactly the way it'd happen in your mind.  "Perfunctory."  Repetitious.  Bland.  Over and over.

That's what I meant with my Quentin Tarantino comment: Rather than casting yourself in a paper-thin role anybody could perform, why not write a better role for a better actor? Rather than having long, repetitious, bland fight scenes over and over, why not cut most of them? They don't add tension, they don't demonstrate character traits, they don't establish the world any more capably than better scenes would. Even if the whole effect was purposeful, and like AcidCat I'm dubious, it's lousy film making to spend so much of the screen time on the film's least interesting aspect.

I loved Inception, but it's painfully imperfect.

[Ghambit]

Welp, now you want them to cut scenes or shorten them to aid in the flow of action?  How would this exactly be possible when the story is written in a strict timeline?  TIME is a major character in this movie, so fucking with it to satisfy people's attention spans isnt smart imo.  Unlike you, I appreciated the reasoning behind the "droning" music and action sequences, because I understood their purpose.  Had they cut it up, it would've fallen apart... on multiple levels (3+ of them actually).

Painful imperfection is more perfect.   

[Goreschach]

Shut up.

[AcidCat]

40 till present) Concentrated suspension of disbelief.  Concentrated effort to not over-analyze plot, dialog, scene or acting ability.  A movie has crappy physics?  Let. it. go.

So, yeah, everything that you critique this movie about has validity.  If I had been trying to, I probably would have had a very similar experience to yours while watching this movie.  Instead, I feel like I got my moneys worth.   

I understand exactly what you're saying, and I agree, I also generally am able to suspend disbelief and just enjoy a movie on its own terms. Sometimes however I just can't, something just doesn't work on a fundamental level and I can't really force myself to enjoy it, it's like that magic just doesn't happen. *shrug*

[sickrubik]

So, I've been gone a few days and have actually seen the movie twice more.

Both times with people who were seeing it for the first time. Both people loved it and both said they liked the tension.

On that topic, I wuld have to disagree with the assertion that Nolan doesn't do tension very well. You can't say "hey, here's all this tension" and then say "he doesn't do tension", first off.

[Vision]

[Teleku]

Heh:

[naum]

Inception: The Gathering

[Arthur_Parker]

[Ozzu]

[Vision]

Wait...yeah...WTF!?

[DraconianOne]

 

[Yegolev]

[Teleku]

Wait...yeah...WTF!?

He didn't just want to "see his kids again" though.  He wants to live with them like a family again, and he couldn't until his name was cleared.  He couldn't settle down to live with his family in France since the cops would get him.  The only places where he could hang out for any significant amount of time are probably places you don't want to bring your kids to.

[Tebonas]

Thats true, and I still have to laugh when I see his face in the third picture.  

I blame Fry

[Mosesandstick]

I don't know how the US works, but I assume the grandmother has protective custody and might not want them to visit him?

[Yegolev]

Granny did seem pissed.

Also, extradition from France is a nightmare, per Mr. Cobb.

[naum]

Bill and Ted's Excellent Inception
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5M6dYiIbRKM&feature=player_embedded

[HaemishM]

Saw it this weekend, finally. One of the best movies I've ever seen. I think I mostly agree with the Chud.com guy - the whole goddamn thing was a dream. Leo either created all of it, including all the members of the team, as a way to finally deal with his grief and move on, or there really are extractors out there and in this case they were trying to extract his metaphysical ass out of the dream state he's in. There was no reality in the whole thing.

Chris Nolan may have displaced Fellini as my favorite director of all time.

[birdsguts]

Chris Nolan may have displaced Fellini as my favorite director of all time.

I'll drink to that. *drinks*

[LK]

I need more Inception parody pictures like Chris Walken needs cowbell.

[Lakov_Sanite]

My 2c is that Mal never existed, Leo created her during his time in limbo to deal with decades of solitude. Mal, the kids it's all fantasy and he can't let them go so some of his friends, possibly only michael cane, go inside his head to fix him.

[DraconianOne]

There was no reality in the whole thing.

Yup, my take too. The most dreamlike action appeared to happen in the "real world" sequences.