Inception

Introduction

Directed by Christopher Nolan, Inception was released in 2010 and combined genres including action, drama, the heist film, and science fiction. Hailed by critics and embraced by fans, it was the culmination of nine years worth of ideas and rewrites from Nolan, who also wrote the screenplay. However, while the movie thrilled audiences around the globe with its dreamlike action, many who saw it wound up searching for Inception meaning at every opportunity.

Reaction to Inception

The critical reaction to Inception was largely positive, and critics ranging from Peter Travers to Roger Ebert placed it in their top 10 list for 2010. On 55 critics' lists, it ranked as the best film of the year (Johnson & Irwin, pp. 167).

The film enjoyed a fair amount of success during award season. Inception nominated for eight Academy Awards and won for Best Sound Editing, Best Sound Mixing, Best Visual Effects, and Best Cinematography. At the BAFTA awards, it won for Best Production Design, Best Sound, and Best Special Visual Effects (Zimmer, pp. 12). While, it failed to win any Golden Globes, it still got nominated in four categories.

However, the greatest success of Inception came at the box office, where the film made over $825 million against a budget of $160 million (Nolan & Nolan, pp. 134). It now ranks as one of the biggest hits in box office history. Even though many of those who left the theaters needed Inception explained to them by a friend, they still had a helluva ride while the lights dimmed.

Inception is a big, musically pulsing, action-filled, high-tension Hollywood movie about implanting an idea in somebody's head through their dreams. So it is a movie about dreams. Movies about dreams usually go phantasmagorical, this one is no exception. The reality inverting "dream sequences", at least ¾ of the movie (Botz-Bornstein, pp. 45), have spectacular special effects such as a chunk of Paris folding on top of itself. Movies about dreams also like to play head games with the audience, especially with time and reality. Inception is no exception it crosses and re-crosses the line deliberately.

The way Nolan constructs his movies, the payoff from Inception was always going to be the result of a balancing act, balancing the interest with confusion. For, most of the movie, the balance was action playing off puzzles. Nolan loves to set up conundrums and explode them, sometimes literally. There's often a frustrated, emotionally drained smart guy who was trying to get his own psyche together while dealing with the needs and necessities of those around him. Inception has two things to focus on, Cobb's dilemma with his family and the job at hand. The dilemma with his wife was emotional, explosive, and difficult to comprehend - it was for him too. The job at hand is a designer dream, which turns out to be a variation of heist movie, full of sound and fury. The two parts do not play well enough together (Johnson & Irwin, pp. 167), they were out of balance - ...