Inception (2010, Christopher Nolan)

So I watched this one on a whim and didn't actually plan on doing a review on it, but I figured a fairly short one would suffice. "Inception" is one of those Hollywood films that try to cover up shoddy film making with an overly complex premise and expensive special effects. To me, it seems like Hollywoodland is fully capable of slapping together a hugely incoherent movie and passing it off as 'intelligent' and, in turn, the mainstream film-going crowd will mistake a needlessly complicated storyline for 'smart' film making. If I couldn't understand it, it MUST be a great, smart film!

Not true. "Inception" had a pretty clever and well-acted thing going, but diverged from it's initial concept so much that it could seriously be re-titled "Sub-plot: The Movie". Leo DeCaprio plays a guy who has mastered the art of dream-traveling and can manipulate people's thoughts by entering their dreams. He plans a heist scenario and infiltrates the subconscious mind of a young business man that leads to multi-layered dream excursions (dream within a dream)...

DeCaprio is good - showcasing his recent, fastidious acting choices (i.e. "Shutter Island") along with Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Mysterious Skin), Ellen Page (Hard Candy), and Tom Hardy (Bronson). Honestly, I was on board with the whole "Dreamscape" bullshit they had going with this movie, but toward the last 30-40 minutes they started in with this boring back story involving DeCaprio's family (which popped up throughout the film, but really slowed down the action toward the end) and the whole thing with them showing up at a ski resort and attempting to infiltrate a fortress lost me entirely... The film was just too long, monotonous and convoluted to fully enjoy from beginning to end. If it would've stayed on track and pretended it wasn't a BIG Hollywood movie for at least five minutes I could have certainly gotten into it.

I don't see it as a film you really need to sit and interpret. There are aspects that are interesting, such as the break-down of dreams and psychological manifestations of our unconscious minds that was easily relatable, but the movie was far too drawn out to hold my interest. Just because it's 2 and a half hours and confusing doesn't mean you need to pretend it's quality cinema, people!