Inception (2010)
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Cobb, a skilled thief who commits corporate espionage by infiltrating the subconscious of his targets is offered a chance to regain his old life as payment for a task considered to be impossible: "inception", the implantation of another person's idea into a target's subconscious.
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What critics say influenced Inception
(One movie not referenced is Joseph Ruben ’s terrific “Dreamscape,” from 1984, which had a lot more fun with some of the same concepts.)
Similarly themed films have been produced over the years -- such as the 1984 Dennis Quaid thriller "Dreamscape," the 1999 blockbuster "The Matrix" and Jim Carrey's 2004 indie hit "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" -- though none with as quality a cast or as much dramatic oomph as "Inception."The…
"Dreamscape" (1984) featured a man who could enter and manipulate dreams, and, of course, in "The Matrix" (1999) human beings and machines battled on various reality levels created by artificial intelligence.
It lacks the nimbleness of Spielberg’s Minority Report or the Jungian-carnival bravado of Joseph Ruben’s Dreamscape or the eerily clean lines and stylized black-suited baddies of The Matrix?or, for that matter, the off-kilter intensity of Nolan’s own Insomnia.
The Bigger Picture: Though there will undoubtedly be (valid) comparisons made to The Matrix and Solaris , a more blatant antecedent for Inception is Joseph Ruben's 1984 thriller Dreamscape , in which Dennis Quaid must enter the President's nightmares to prevent an assassin from doing likewise.
The idea of entering dreams to manipulate someone isn’t new — “Dreamscape” did that back in 1984 — but Nolan raises the stakes with brilliantly deployed effects (Gordon-Levitt walking on ceilings is just one “wow” moment) and a fast-moving, globe-spanning story.
By also functioning as an action thriller, Inception fulfills Nolan's ongoing promise to craft works that are exciting as movies and exciting as films, layered with a Hitchcockian self-reflexivity about the dream escapism of movies themselves (Nolan has copped to Blade Runner , On Her Majesty's Secret Service and Topkapi being among his favorite movies, and their echoes are felt here).
Indeed, all those different dreamscapes give Nolan the chance to reprise what I can well imagine are some of his favourite episodes of cinematic derring-do and adventure – from James Bond’s alpine escapades in On Her Majesty’s Secret Service to the scorching gun battles of Heat .
When you add in the complications of dream time (five minutes of reality is about an hour of dream time) which expands exponentially the deeper you create levels of dreams within dreams, and a third layer that plays out like a literal tribute to On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (was this somehow a favorite lodged in the subconscious of one of these subconscious invaders?) it more and more resembles a movie created by the dreamers.
Otherwise, dreams amount to action scenes referencing other movies – Mission: Impossible, The Matrix, and the swirling snow-bound gun-battles of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
At the same time, there’s one level of the film where it seems to turn into Peter Hunt’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), but it turns out to be O.H.M.S.S. with Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) at its core.
It’s a concept with a heavy debt to “The Matrix” (another team of pros hacking a simulated reality) and author Jeff Noon’s groundbreaking “Vurt” (with its programmed dreams and similar Orpheus-like theme), but Nolan sets it in a more mundane world closer to the one we all know.
"The Matrix" and its "what is reality" themes and storyline will obviously come to most viewers' minds, while the likes of "Total Recall," "Dreamscape" and others of their ilk have similarly mined the sci-fi world regarding dreams, memories and the like.
As much as some will immediately compare Nolan’s latest to “The Matrix” in that it also plays with the concepts of reality, “Inception” is like “The Matrix” times 10, as if you took that meeting between Neo and the Architect from “Reloaded” and stretched it out across an entire film.
Nolan's inspirations include The Matrix, Blade Runner and a fusion of M.C.
It's a haunting, high-octane trip reminiscent of The Matrix .
It inhabits a Philip K. Dick-style universe of psychological warfare that suggests “The Matrix,” “Total Recall” and “Minority Report” — all of them, by the way, better movies — but it’s fairer to call “Inception” a maze movie or a labyrinth movie than a puzzle movie.
It's obviously inspired by Fred Astaire's wall and ceiling dance sequence in "Royal Wedding," and the fact that it was shot the same way (with a revolving set rather than computer-generated effects) makes those scenes all the more impressive to behold.
The most rousing action sequence, a fight in a zero-gravity hallway, cleverly lifts from "2001" (and "Royal Wedding," in which Fred Astaire danced on the walls and the ceiling).
There are images in this smoothly elegant film that will be talked about for decades: six sleepers floating weightlessly in a hotel room; a Paris street folding in on itself; and in an echo of Fred Astaire’s dancing-on-the-ceiling scene from “Royal Wedding,” two guys crawl all over a ceiling with the same special-effect technique, except they’re not tap-dancing — they’re trying to kill each other.
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Moviegoers have experienced this kind of dream invasion concept before: Dreamscape , Total Recall , Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind , and pretty much the entire Nightmare on Elm Street series to name a few.
It immediately reminded me of Marc Forster’s Stay (2005), Michel Gondry’s Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004) and Charlie Kaufman’s Synecdoche, New York (2008).
The Matrix first introduced the concept to mainstream cinema audiences and this concept has since appeared in films as diverse as eXistenZ and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind .
Similarly themed films have been produced over the years -- such as the 1984 Dennis Quaid thriller "Dreamscape," the 1999 blockbuster "The Matrix" and Jim Carrey's 2004 indie hit "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" -- though none with as quality a cast or as much dramatic oomph as "Inception."The…
The movies have a proud line of dream explorations and unreal worlds, from Spellbound to Dreamscape, Dark City and The Matrix, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind to almost anything by Luis Buñuel, David Lynch and Satoshi Kon.
That experience in itself may sound a bit familiar, and "Inception" does feature glimmers of mind-trip movies like "The Matrix," ''Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and even a "Wizard of Oz" moment.
That Ken Watanabe has make-up reminiscent of Keir Dullea's aged figure in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) does not make it a Kubrick movie.
At the same time, there’s one level of the film where it seems to turn into Peter Hunt’s On Her Majesty’s Secret Service (1969), but it turns out to be O.H.M.S.S. with Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968) at its core.
As Kubrick’s career progressed he was increasingly drawn to stories that defied or challenged rational analysis, like “2001: A Space Odyssey” or “The Shining.”
Despite riffs on everything from "2001: A Space Odyssey" to "Blade Runner" to "Strange Days" to "The Matrix," the best of this elegant brain-bender — a heist picture with a frame designed by Salvador Dali and M.C.
Only someone who never saw (or appreciated) Dark City would be able to call it visionary (or Paprika, or Heat, or Blade Runner, or 2001: A Space Odyssey, or Solaris [either one], or, uhm, The Matrix... should I go on?), as Nolan's long-gestating science fiction opus (he first conceived of it as a teenager) rarely rises above its own apparent reliance on these influences.
With its dreams, dreams within dreams, and dreams within dreams within dreams, Christopher Nolan’s Inception manages to be clunky and confusing on four separate levels of reality?while out here, in this even more perplexing dream we call ?life,? it’s being hailed as a masterpiece on the order of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
However, while the narrative seems overly complex at times, in the style of the more baffling entries in the Mission: Impossible franchise (which this film also evokes, both in terms of a team of spies and the impersonation of one character by another), the plot is actually quite simple.
Otherwise, dreams amount to action scenes referencing other movies – Mission: Impossible, The Matrix, and the swirling snow-bound gun-battles of On Her Majesty’s Secret Service.
Throw in the intricate planning and teamwork of "Mission: Impossible" and perhaps too many instances of James Bond-esque action on skis, and there's no shortage of source material from which Nolan is obviously able to tap.
Part Ocean’s Eleven, parts Mission Impossible with a dash of The Fugitive and The Usual Suspects, Inception has a little something for everyone.
So it’s, like, Mission: Impossible in the Dreamscape-Matrix!
Cobb assembles a “Mission: Impossible”-style team, including his right-hand man Arthur ( Joseph Gordon-Levitt ), to create a dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream scenario for Fischer.
Similarly, in his two Batman films, Batman Begins (2005) and The Dark Knight (2008), he gave us a caped hero of dense psychological complexity who ultimately meets his match in an inexplicable psychopath who represents everything that is out of our control; the idea of heroism itself as delusion.
In this conceptually alluring but laborious, visionless follow-up to The Dark Knight , Leonardo DiCaprio (still in Shutters Island mode) leads a team of subconscious-dwellers who specialize in mental corporate skullduggery.
As he did with "The Dark Knight," Nolan crafts a brilliant piece of slick, tantalizing entertainment — a cinematic chess match that demands focus and smarts from an audience jonesing for the same kind of mind-blowing film experience we first got with "Matrix."
With INCEPTION, writer-director Christopher Nolan combines the mind-bending narrative of his early hit “Memento” with the mainstream appeal of his Batman movies (“Batman Begins” and “The Dark Knight”).
What you haven't seen is how Nolan combines this epic scope that surpasses even "The Dark Knight" (2008) with the intricate plotting of his breakout hit "Memento" (2000) or his somewhat overlooked "The Prestige" (2006), and the emotional grounding provided by DiCaprio.
Some filmmakers dream big.Director Christopher Nolan's ("Memento," "The Dark Knight") visually stunning and exceptionally cast "Inception" is a cinematic marvel -- a rare film inspired by imagination rather than potential box-office return.
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They feature none of the emotions and feelings dreams causefear, elation, sadness, arousaland are rendered outright impostors next to way superior, far more accurate films set in dreamlike states, from 1961's "Last Year at Marienbad" to 1984's "…
Back in 1970, more than 30,000 people responded to a Sunday newspaper questionnaire about the films that most closely resembled dreams, the top 15 ranging from Last Year at Marienbad and 2001 to Belle de jour and The Seventh Seal.
There are any number of film and literary influences found in Inception, the most compelling being Last Year at Marienbad, the classic brain screw by French director Alain Resnais that set a potentially dangerous romance inside an unsteady realm of doubt and intrigue.
What's The Deal: Take The Matrix's commitment to techy visual achievements, those trailer moments that make you go "Whoa" all Keanu-style, then take Last Year at Marienbad's hypnotic mindbendiness and commitment to destabilizing your ability to watch a movie without stopping every few minutes to ask yourself, "Okay, where are we now?
In fact, this is pretty much a magpie’s nest of a film, including imagery from MC Escher prints and James Bond movies, with echoes of other films that have similar plots from Total Recall (1990) to Dark City (1998).