Inception: Almost everyone who keeps up with pop-culture has seen it, or at least read about it. If you somehow disregarded all your friends’ pressure see it, or perhaps were too busy with summer classes to go and see the 148 minute, science action film, here is a brief summary of the plot: Dom Cobb (played by Leonardo Dicaprio) is a thief who extracts information from the subconscious dreams of his victims. As the viewers gradually get Cobb’s background story, they learn a haunting past about how he can no longer see his children and wife. In a last attempt to re-connect with them, he must perform the job of inception, to plant an idea into the subconscious of his client’s competitor. This task involves the work of henchmen who aid him in this trying and dangerous tri-lateral dream sequence. While Inception’s elaborate script, neurological accuracy and overall plot intelligence has garnered its praise from critics such as Christof Koch; others such as Mel Valentin argue that the films lack of a true conflict and uninteresting characters collectively clip Inception’s cinematic wings. Here both views are presented accompanied by some input of my own.
Chrisof Koch presents the claim that “Inception is a game changer: a smart, mega-budge Hollywood product that does not pander to its audience.” (Koch, 1) He supports his claim with three key reasons for his high approval of the film. The first is his admiration for the scripting--he maintains the plot is more intriguing than most films produced today. Secondly, Koch expresses that he is a scholar and neuroengineer who is seeking to learn how the brain parallels with the subconscious, and he is designing devices to examine people’s innermost thoughts (Koch, 1). Thus, the film relates to his studies and does not insult his intelligence. Finally, Koch states the movie portrays truths about dreams, such as: physical laws can be ignored, time moves faster than in reality, intense emotion can be felt, memory of dream events is absent, and external stimuli can be incorporated into the dream before waking (Koch, 1).
Mel Valentin expresses his disapproval of the film, claiming “Like film geeks, movie-obsessed bloggers some movie critics, and casual fans, Inception topped the list of my most-anticipated films of the summer, based on Nolan’s decade-long track record of combining style, substance, and more recently, spectacle...For me, though, Nolan managed to deliver on style and spectacle, but failed to deliver on substance.” (Valentin, 1) Valentin gives three reasons, validating his claim, that were provided by another author from the blog “Cinmatical,” Peter Hall. Hall concludes that one, Inception did not have a strong, main villain or a real character in conflict (and vise versa), two, that the characters lacked inner lives and self-motivating goals which made for unengaging characters, and three that most of the characters had no personal or emotional stakes (Valentin, 1).
Upon reading both opinion articles, it seemed they were both equally convincing. Koch validated his claim with scientific facts and used himself as an example of how scholarly viewers could relate and enjoy the film. Valentin and Hall validated their claims with lots of support from the film. I am in favor of Valentin and Hall’s claims mainly because I believed the film to be too long, purposefully confusing, and simply, another run-of-the-mill action film. However, Koch made a convincing assertion about the complexity and scientifical truth of the film.
Kotch, Christof. "Access : A Smart Vision of Brain Hacking : Nature." Nature. Nature Publishing Group : Science Journals, Jobs, and Information. 1 Sept. 2010. Web. 10 Sept. 2010. <http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v467/n7311/full/467032b.html>.
Valentin, Mel. "Six Ways Where 'Inception' Went Wrong (and Could Have Gone Right)." The Moviefone Blog. 20 July 2010. Web. 10 Sept. 2010. <http://blog.moviefone.com/2010/07/20/six-ways-where-inception-went-wrong-and-could-have-gone-right/5>.
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