Inception

I'm going to try and write this article without including any spoilers. It won't be easy.

I saw Inception yesterday with the family. As you may know, it's about a group of people who specialize in entering dreams and stealing their target's most sensitive secrets. The main character, a man named Cobb, is given an offer that would allow him to leave this illegal business and return to his two young children in America. The offer requires him to perform an Inception - to plant an idea in someone's mind without them recognizing someone else had placed it there. The target is the heir of an energy giant's business; the idea Cobb is to plant is for the heir to break up the business instead of inheriting it all for himself. From there, Cobb assembles his team and begins preparation.

I can't go much further without spoiling part of the story, and have left out a few details for fear of annoying people, but the first portion of the plot is there... Hopefully enough that my remaining comments make sense. The one other comment I have to add is that the film ends with a question that I would say is the single question left from the movie. If you've seen it, you know what I'm talking about.

And I find that refreshing about this movie. Most of the time recently, it seems to me, TV shows or movies that try to be intellectual (most of them succeed; some do not) ask a lot of questions, and being in a postmodern society, ask you to draw your own conclusions. While Inception was deliberately written to be interpreted either way, I think the writer had a specific answer he believed to be true. Once you decide about the final question, the other questions offered by the movie fall into place.

Generally, the movie was well-acted and constantly moving. The one thing that broke the illusion for me was that when the person who was designing the sedative to make sure the target and the team stayed asleep throughout the mission was explaining it, he said that he had designed it so it wouldn't disable their inner ear, allowing them to be woken up by a fall. (Waking up = a safe way out if the mission goes bad) While that may be possible, it seemed a bit silly to me. That being said, the rest of the science at least allowed me to agree with it on a peripheral level.

If you don't want to think, don't go see Inception. Otherwise, it's a good summer movie with a juicy plot. Also, it has Ellen Page. If I had to rate it, I'd probably give it a 4 out of 5. I'm not sure what would give it the fifth point, but I felt like there was a bit missing... I'm not sure what. Then again, I'm still processing it a little bit. If I figure it out, I'll let you know.

Three random thoughts:
1. School is coming up far too soon.
2. I have the basement to myself this week, since my oldest brother is out of town. This means much time on the Xbox 360.
3. "Words Drowned By Fireworks" is probably the most poetic song title I've ever heard. If you've played Final Fantasy VII, you probably agree it's appropriately titled. (Gondola Ride scene) If you haven't played it, you'd probably say, "Oh, this sounds nice."