Inception

Before I talk about the movie itself, I just want to say how glad I am that it exists. A summer action movie with a huge budget that's not only based on an original idea, but a complicated one, that isn't really explained in the trailers and actually asks the audience to think? It's a miracle that this was made. I have some amount of respect for Avatar for doing a similar thing, but the whole story was so broad that anyone from children to senior citizens could easily understand it, which was its intention. But Inception has the complexity of a low budget, mind-bending labor of love destined to release in a dozen theaters inside the shell of a blockbuster crowd pleaser. I guess it's too bad that Christopher Nolan had to make Warner Bros. six hundred million with The Dark Knight before he was allowed to do it, but I can live with that.

And the best part is that the film delivers. It's not perfect, but no movie really is. It is successful at doing pretty much everything I wanted from it, though. The extraction/inception concept in elegantly realized, giving you the basics in the twisty opening sequence (No punches are pulled; after a couple studio logos in the beginning, Nolan dives right into the story and demands you have your brain on immediately) explaining itself more as necessary, and playing out as expected, following its own rules all the way. Several critics of the film have complained about the film's interpretation of "dreams", saying everything is way too orderly and logical to accurately represent a true dream state. But the movie isn't about a true dream state - it's about something artificial, similar to dreaming but not actually the same, that allows for it to be designed and shared by multiple people. People criticizing the film for not being dream-like didn't understand what it was about. Not that everything is entirely orderly - there's obviously the scenes with the city folding over and exploding around the characters, but what's clever is that all these money shots for the trailer happen when the stakes aren't really that high - it's there to explain the potential of control within the dreams, but the real "heist" in the movie is generally more orderly beyond the different touches that show the way dreams can affect others.

I was actually surprised by how much action there was - I imagine if Nolan had complete creative control there might have been a bit fewer guys with guns running everywhere to focus a bit more on the story, but he made sure to fill it up with shooting and explosions to keep the studio happy. Not that it's ever too distracting, and it's generally pretty well filmed and exciting. I felt a bit of fatigue by the time they get to the snowy area from the trailer but I appreciated the attempt to mix it up a bit. Where the action really shines is one scene in particular, a sequence in a hotel hallway that's tumbling over, which completely captures the potential of the moment and to me was the most striking image in the whole film. Nolan has always been more of a craftsman than a stylist when it comes to his filming technique, and that holds true even in sequences like these, but somehow it makes the crazy story work. I imagine that someone more inclined to wow you with the crazy shit he can come up with might lose the thread, whereas Nolan keeps his insane ideas grounded enough with his studied film work that it all seems to make perfect sense.

Beyond the action and heist movie elements, there's also an emotional core to the story. The whole reason for Leonardo DiCaprio's character Cobb accepting the job is a personal one, and as we learn more about his dark past over the course of the film, it becomes clear how tragic the implications of all this escaping into dreams is. He's the only one who really gets this sort of development, as everyone else is mostly there to serve the story, but without that aspect the film would merely be a brilliant executed one and not so powerful. It's a really good if understated performance by DiCaprio, and it helps that pretty much everyone else is fantastic too. Ellen Page comes the closest to understanding his character, and she does a great job as the audience surrogate to whom everything is explained, something which isn't always the easiest to do, especially with a concept as heady as this one. Marion Cotillard gives another really damaged performance, and she's quickly becoming one of my favorite actresses in the game. Michael Caine shows up for his fourth Nolan film, although it's really a bit part that he doesn't have much time to do anything with, yet he's still his charming, wise self. Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Tom Hardy are really great as members of Cobb's team, charming and badass as required, and I definitely need to see more work by both of them. Ken Watanabe plays a pretty critical role, and does a good job despite an accent that's a bit difficult at times. The rest of the cast is solid as well, though they didn't really jump out.

In the end, I wasn't sure how I really felt about the film. It impressed the heck out of me, but I wasn't sure if it hit me like the other truly great movies that I've seen. Then I spent the rest of the time from leaving the theater to sitting down for this review doing little other than thinking about what I had seen, and continuing to marvel at how well its best parts worked. Screw it, this was a fantastic movie, and it will likely end up in my top ten of this decade easily. It wasn't flawless, but I feel like many of the criticisms were from people who just weren't seeing what they expected to see, and the vision on display is astounding. It's clearly designed for repeat viewings, the ending was perfect, and it was probably the best combination of new ideas, visual ingenuity, and well executed action since The Matrix. If our summers were filled with things like this instead of remakes, sequels, and adaptations of every successful property under the sun, the world would be a better place.

Batman Begins

I haven't been posting lately, mostly because I've been rewatching some old movies. No reason I can't talk about them, though.

Somewhere in between its release in 2005 and seeing The Dark Knight, I forgot that the first Christopher Nolan-directed Batman movie was as good as it was. I still think Knight's better, but Begins is damn solid in its own right. What's impressive is how he manages to make films that capture the coolness of Batman and comic books in general without having particularly good action scenes. They're a big part of what makes the Spider-Man movies (at least the first two) great, which is the only super hero movie franchise I've enjoyed on the same level as the revived Batman, and usually what carries action movies in general, but they really aren't what makes Batman good. Sure, the fights are there, but they're pretty poorly filmed; lit too dimly, shot too close, and cut too fast. This is partly a stylistic choice to make Batman more secretive and menacing, but it doesn't make for particularly entertaining sequences. Both movies have had decent car chases, but it's really the characters that drive the show, and that's what makes them so much better than the other riffraff.

When Begins came out, origin stories were all the rage, and they still are to some extent, it's just that more properties are already established. A good origin story can be very compelling, the problem is they end up being similar and you can only see a guy accidentally gain powers and adapt to it over the course of an hour so many times before it gets boring. But that's what makes Begins interesting; not only is it a story we haven't heard before, it's one about a character's motives, not the magic MacGuffin that turns him into a freak. (Note: I intentionally misused the movie term "MacGuffin" here, because the next several films I'll be talking about are directed by a man who has no idea what it actually means. Guess who it is!) Showing Bruce Wayne's slow transition into Batman, one he makes because he comes to feel a true need to help people and not because he's strong enough to throw trucks now, is a truly interesting one, and then we get to the second half, which is a pretty darn good crime story besides the somewhat ludicrous doomsday device. The cast is obscenely good, with nearly every significant part played by a well-known talent, and despite the hate she got I think even Katie Holms was competent. Liam Neeson plays a good mentor, but he shows here that he can do other things as well. Besides the fights, the film's only failing in my eyes are the attempts at humor later on, which seem somehow more frequent as the drama builds and usually fall flat. Gordon's racing to get into place with the new Batmobile and stop the bad guys from destroying the whole city, do we really need a cutaway to a random bum telling him he likes his car? In any case, it's not perfect, but it's exactly the reboot Batman needed to fit into this era of a more serious super hero.

The Dark Knight

Batman Begins was one of the better releases in the now quite popular comic book/super hero movement in modern action movies, although it wasn't perfect. The Dark Knight isn't either, of course, but it is probably the best comic book movie I've ever seen. I'd be lying if I said a big part of that wasn't Heath Ledger's performance as the Joker, but the movie wasn't one-note either, as it excelled in most areas. A problem with Begins was the action scenes themselves. The movie completely captured the grittier, darker mood that the Batman franchise took in the 80's, but when people were getting violent it often got confusing because darkness and the trendy shaky camera conspired to muddle what was actually happening. The Dark Knight still isn't perfect, but it's generally easier to see what Batman's doing as he pounds faces in. There are some excellent vehicle sequences as well, which were amplified in intensity by the great and incredibly loud sound design, with my seat in the theater actually rumbling when huge trucks were barreling around. It's not restricted to loud moments - there are plenty of times, usually involving the Joker, where it's impressive how well they got across the characters sickly violent nature without ever breaking the PG-13 rating.

Most of that though is all Ledger - the guy really dove into the character and created one of the most unnerving performances I've ever seen. Every tick, every line shows you the depth of his psychosis. Although I thought it was more impressive, the job he did really shouldn't be compared to Jack Nicholson's in the 1989 film, because they're very different. Nicholson's Joker was perverse and hilarious, Ledger's is just perverse. There are times when he will make you laugh, but that isn't really the goal. I haven't seen any of his other work, but his passing is truly unfortunate. He had quite a talent that we won't have seen enough of. Not that he was the only good member of the cast. Bale's Batman voice is still a little weird, but he does a good job of handling both ends of the character. I haven't seen Eckhart do much serious stuff, but he is great portraying the downfall of Harvey Dent. Gary Oldman, Morgan Freeman, and Michael Caine don't stretch their talents that far but are solid playing familiar characters. I don't like how they had to recast Maggie Gyllenhaal in Katie Holmes' old role, but she probably does a better job than Katie would have. Nolan really impressed me with Memento, and whether he does another Batman or moves on, he's one of the more talented directors working right now. There were some surprises with how he handled all the different characters, but I thought they did a great job keeping everything in check and entertaining.