Hello! Just back this minute from seeing the film. I have a few comments to make which may involve SPOILERS.

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Hmmm.

The short review is - what a load of disappointing and quite frankly tedious crap.

Oh Nolan why are you getting worse with each film? Who honestly thinks LDC is an actor with enough charisma to hold a film like this? He really wasn't enough for this role. Why the fuck does Nolan insist on having that thuddingly monotonous soundtrack pounding over virtually every single scene of dialogue? Why not give the actors some space instead of making it feel rushed and forcing them into layering soundbites for only the sake of exposition? Why not make this about the performances rather than worship the god of pacing? (it certainly didn't feel like 148 minutes I'll give him that).

Sorry, that girl he hires? Where was that maze she designed? Oh fuck that, we want a shortcut now. And why is Leo's dad (Michael Caine again for some reason) offering up students to do dodgy work? And what was she studying? Extraction 101? What world is this that dreams can be hacked in this way? This is never explained. Should we expect to see the flying cars out the window? Has cancer been eradicated in this world? How many other people are doing this shit?

And Leo with a bad case of dead wife syndrome (DWS). You know if you want to keep pulling that trick you might want to make it better than it was in Memento. Which is hard to do. Mainly because Guy Pearce is a better actor who makes you feel something about his character. Sympathy, disgust, shock, whatever. Something. LDC is like balsa wood in comparison.

But maybe I'm being too hard on Leo. Maybe the problem is with the script. I was surprised to find I had no problems following what was supposed to be a twisty, layered plot. I didn't see multiple plots criss-crossing and tying my mind up in knots - you want that? Try a James Ellroy novel. I still find Memento a mind-bending watch. The dream within a dream scenario is as hard to imagine as a box within another box. And here that's all that Nolan is concerned about. He loves the techie aspects of this. How does box C behave in box B. Oh B is jiggling about so C is getting all shook up. And do we get to care much about the inception itself? Nope. I thought this was a big missed opportunity to play the complex mind-games required to crack the subject. But in between explosions there wasn't much time for that.

Nolan has become a slightly more sophisticated version of the recent fanboy directors. But he's still thoroughly crass and obvious and doesn't have the talent to explore the spaces between what initially seem like promising ideas. But dreams? Hell, I enjoyed the more straightforward japes of Dreamcape and that was a long time ago.

But I am surprised that so many love this - I'd ask that you think about the characters. State what was memorable about them and what made them interesting. What did this film actually say that was of substance? Strip away the artifice and what are you actually left with?

I saw Total Recall, again, a few days ago. It was better than this.

>> ^dag:

So glad this was proven a hoax - we still have time for the flying cars, rehydratable pizza hut, and giant CGI Jaws that jumps out of the marquee. Also, Mattel - get fucking busy - you have 4 years for anti-grav research.


Dag--Will we have 3D videos, holograms, etc. from VS by then?

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

So glad this was proven a hoax - we still have time for the flying cars, rehydratable pizza hut, and giant CGI Jaws that jumps out of the marquee. Also, Mattel - get fucking busy - you have 4 years for anti-grav research.

>> ^Jinx:

Now all we need is driveways that transform into runways and we are set.
Well, the top 0.0000001% of us anyway.


depending on the stall speed, you could just use sections of the highway. Now, in addition of an HOV lane, you need to make an air strip lane

interesting tidbit, the highway system in the US was designed with the military and mind, and as such there have to be straight sections ever so often long enough to land a jet.

>> ^Jinx:

Now all we need is driveways that transform into runways and we are set.
Well, the top 0.0000001% of us anyway.


Great minds....

Man that landing was a lot smoother than I expected! But srsly it's 2010, and this is the first true 'flying car'? 'Bout time

*geek *engineering

Does this mean I can have my flying car now?

*beg for flying cars

We are truly living in the future now. Where's my flying car?!?

Technically, ANYTHING you do is EIA... in this case, he lived and his wretched offspring will likely go on to smash themselves through the windshields of their flying cars in the near future.

>> ^AeroMechanical:
It's going to be 2015 in just about five years. Where is my hoverboard? Where are my flying cars and my reverse shrinky-dink pizzas? What about that shark hologram and the self drying, self tailoring jacket? And for god sake, my plastic vest that makes chicken noises?!
All that stuff somehow seemed reasonable to me when I was a kid.


No need for all this crap! Now you have The Internets, the iPhone, and Twitter!!

It's going to be 2015 in just about five years. Where is my hoverboard? Where are my flying cars and my reverse shrinky-dink pizzas? What about that shark hologram and the self drying, self tailoring jacket? And for god sake, my plastic vest that makes chicken noises?!

All that stuff somehow seemed reasonable to me when I was a kid.

This would never happen if we had flying cars.

>> ^gwiz665:
Where's my damn flying car!? This is the future, dammit.

Actually those already exist, they're just very very expensive ($1M+).


>> ^ponceleon:
when you think computer, it is pretty synonymous with bug, hack, locked up, error, and ultimately unreliability.

That's "personal computers" though. Consumer models are built for function over absolute reliability... they're a heap of software from dozens of companies. Most problems are caused by users.

The software running in emergency rooms and air traffic control are fairly stable, but that's because reliability was one of their top design goals (over performance and feature set).

I believe the Movie "Back to the Future" predicted flying cars by the year 2015!
I'm sure glad I'll be around to own one of those.

But seriously..., May favorite was Number 28
"The Almighty certainly never intended that people should travel at such breakneck speed.” - 15 miles per hour - Awesome Stupidity and naivety.