Monday, July 19, 2010

Two-Minute Inception

Spoilers. Don't be reading unless you like spoilers.

[Scene: Wherever. Maybe it's a dream, maybe it isn't. Let's say it's some anonymous warehouse space or an office building lobby. If it's not a ridiculously expensive rotating hallway, then it's just some random spot with as much character as a Soviet apartment block.]

SAITO: Cobb, I need you to plant an idea in someone's mind - what you call 'inception'. I need you to convince this man named Fischer to break up his father's business empire.

COBB: I can do it. I'll need a new team, special sedatives, a dream within a dream within a dream...

SAITO: I have to go to the bathroom really badly. Can you hurry it up?

COBB: Okay, hold on. Hey Fischer!

FISCHER: Yup?

COBB: Break up your father's empire.

FISCHER: No.

COBB: I'm kidnapping you. Break up your father's empire.

FISCHER: No.

COBB: I'm the head of your security team now. Break up your father's empire.

FISCHER: No!

COBB: We're in some kind of snow fortress and we're doing stuff? Break up your -

FISCHER: Alright. Shut up already.

MAL: Cobb. I love you. Stay with me.

COBB: I killed you. Sort of. Sorry.

MAL: I'm dead? That's sad.

COBB: I feel better now.

ELLEN PAGE: I'm glad I could help you come to terms with your emotions.

COBB: You're still here?

ELLEN PAGE: I guess. I don't even remember my character's name.

COBB: Everything is better now.

COBB: Where am I anyway?

10 comments:

DOT said...

Damn you and your pernicious cynicism. I thought I'd enjoyed the film, now I'm not so sure. Did I enjoy it? Am I allowed to?

palinode said...

Would it help if I told you I enjoyed the film too? I did! I believe it's vulnerable to some pretty serious criticism, though.

DOT said...

Of course, show me a work of art that cannot be criticised and I will show you my latest short story.

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Norm said...

You know, a review I read on a website I read said something along the lines of "this movie's not that good, go see it anyw..." oh wait. That was you. Aha!

This blog gives me deja vu. Really.

apathy lounge said...

The local reviewer LOVED this movie. I've learned to take the opposite of what he says and go with that, but some of the things he's loved in the past stunk. A lot. I've also heard that the movie is confusing. I don't need that. I'm confused enough. Please advise.

palinode said...

Apathy Lounge - The movie isn't really that confusing, but you'll probably miss some details, if only because Nolan spends tons of time setting up the clunky rules and then neglects to turn the characters into readily distinguishable individuals. On top of that, Hans Zimmer's score blares over the dialogue at important moments so you're left wondering what someone said, but too late, because they're doing something else. Which would be okay if I cared about the characters, but there are none.

I thought it was an interesting film, but the critical love for it has been a bit baffling.

amy hawkins said...

If Mal is only Cobb's projection when she's speaking with Ellen Page's character, does that mean that this film doesn't actually pass the Bechdel rule?

palinode said...

My god, Amy, if the Bechdel rule carried the force of law, Inception would get the death penalty.

Maria said...

I walked out of that theater with a group of black sweatered people who immediately began pompously asking each other, "So, did the top stop spinning or not?"

And all I was thinking was that Mal had those kind of perpetually watery eyes that you usually only see in people who wander around in rain coats.