Friday, April 8, 2011

Why Inception Sucked

I'm just going to come right out and say it:  INCEPTION blew.

The concept was intriguing, the acting was fantastic, and the visuals were inspired.  But the movie wussed out on its own concept.  As a story, that was a real letdown.

So many people walked out of that movie feeling their minds blown.  But not me.  I was insanely annoyed.  As storytellers, I think it's our jobs to take people to the line and then push them over it.  The first act is littered with literary guns that simply fail to ever go off.

Take for example the concept of the dream within a dream within a dream.  In order to accomplish their mission, the characters would exist in the target's mind for what would feel like 30 years!  When I heard that, I was excited.  How would the story play out for 30 years?  Would they go crazy?  Would they be the same people they were when they went into the dream?  I mean, wow!  The idea is insane.  And then they speed up the entire sequence into hours rather than years and blew that which made the whole thing exciting.

Sure, one character is stuck in Limbo for decades but he comes out no worse for the wear, and we never see what he goes through.

All in all, it was a promise unfulfilled.

The Architect character played by Ellen Paige was another wasted opportunity.  She had the ability to BUILD WORLDS!  And she gave us a snow range.  The whole thing was supposed to be some kind of maze, but because of the time constraint, she had to make a path right through it.

To me, the ending was the least interesting aspect.  Was he awake, wasn't he?  Who cares?  This was a character drama that succumbed to plot.  It was wasted opportunity after wasted opportunity.

In my opinion, if you want to see a concept throughly explored, go see THE ADJUSTMENT BUREAU.

2 comments:

  1. GASP! Blasphemy!

    No, really, I can't say I disagree with your comments here. There were things they left undone, big things that I wish they had explored. But if they had, the movie would be like 4 hours long. And really watching Saito go slowly insane wouldn't have been very entertaining, I don't think. Maybe a movie in itself. Exploring those ideas would've thrown off the pacing entirely, and it was supposed to be more Action/Adventure less Drama.

    Despite these semi-shortcomings, I adore this movie. Even if they never fully explored the concepts, the concepts themselves were so amazing I can't be irritated.

    Just the idea of "Inception," creating an idea in someone else's mind. ...Isn't that what we do as writers? We disseminate ideas, life-changing ideas if we do it right.

    Alright, yea, I have a thing for Leonardo DiCaprio. I grew up on Titanic, okay? So shoot me. ;)

    ~Tara

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  2. Tara: LOL! I am still definitely in awe of the concepts and I hope that the Nolan's will explore them further. But concepts alone don't do it for me. The best example being the Matrix trilogy. The writers there squandered the ideas and concepts they introduced.

    I wonder, did the movie attempt to perform inception on the watchers? Did it work?

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