Reviews

A fun movie with some compassion, that gets the team work 'back into the action'.

Brad Bird and the writers make a number of correct decisions that recall the uniqueness, character and excitement of the original series. Bird relies on larger-than-life live action stunts (particularly thrilling on the IMAX) rather than rely on CGI fakery or shaky camera work. This more traditional but more realistic direction adds to the fun. Tom Cruise has (and does) the best stunts, of course, but the rest of team also contribute much more than in the previous films. This shift in emphasis by the writers also contributes to the fun by allowing all the characters to actually play an important or critical role (best shown in the last sequence in India) rather than just 'be helpers' to Tom Cruise. This too was a compelling characteristic of the original series.

The cast is enjoyable, and the bits of comic dialog add to the fun. The occasional failures of some of the gadgetry also provide lighthearted moments, keeping the film light enough so that it is balanced and proportional, with the correct mix of action, suspense, and relief. It never takes itself too seriously, which is appropriate to the genre.

Best seen while eating popcorn.

For all the time and effort spent on this film, in the end Cameron blew it. Yes the graphics are nice, and the planet intriguing. Which is why Cameron should have concentrated on those features. The 'plot' of mineral mining and the silly battle at the end does nothing to promote what this film is really about, Pandora and its wildlife. Cameron could have simplified matters and made a much better film by simply concentrating on Pandora's wildlife and the daily lives and rituals of the tribes (why so many factions, after all). He could have narrated the film himself. He could have saved time and effort better spent on deepening and fleshing out his creation. Forget the actors/characters which are ultimately forgettable, forget the whole 'avatar/spy' scenario, forget the corporate mining diatribe, forget the environmental silliness. But keep the training sequence of the newly initiated. That was fun. And the love story. Derivative but cute. Really, just show us what you've spent 10 years creating. A documentary approach would have been better, more cohesive, cogent, fulfilling, enriching, intriguing and ultimately more honest.

For the amount of effort that went into this production, I found the result to be ultimately pretty dull. Like nearly 99% of what has come out of Hollywood in the past 15 years or so, this film has loads of technique but little heart. It offers little to care for, and therefore little to remember.

Yes, there's some fancy graphics, but that's about it. The internal logic of the nested dreams is routinely disrupted, the action sequences don't make much sense (why all the shooting, really?) and none of the characters are emotionally involving. Di Caprio's character has a nominal story arc at best, and the angst he's supposed to feel is not grounded because we don't know neither his nor his wife's history, or how they got together.

Yes, Inception is a fun mind game. But like most mind games, it ultimately doesn't make for a worthwhile experience. And at 2.5 hours this mind game is far too overblown. Its lack of proportion (too much talk, too many levels, too much trivial action, complicated for the sake of complicated) unfortunately makes things worse. The incessant music, typical of Zimmer, is trivially repetitive, as are much of the action sequences. Ultimately these become much more intrusive and annoying as the film progressives.

When I compare this film to older ones, like The Woman in the Window, which achieves so much more of a memorable experience and story, yet with so little, one has to wonder if technology and truckloads of cash are getting in the way of memorable storytelling.

This film would have fared much better as a comedy, or maybe as round-table discussion about dreams, or maybe as a survey of a Facebook clique of friends sharing dreams. But the film needed to have far more fantasy to really evoke the sensation of dreamscapes. And most importantly, it needed a far more soulful and compelling story with characters we are allowed to learn about and therefore care about.