Inception

🔥 6th Watch | Top 100 | Christopher Nolan Ranked Still, Inception definitely deserves 5 stars. In my other reviews I’ve already stated why I liked so much, but I’ll just sum it up here: The cinematography and the practical effects are amazing. The set design is very fitting and it was extremely well executed. None of performances from any of the actors stood out in particular but their performances were all great and I felt chemistry between the group. In addition, it has stellar directing and editing while containing a thundering score. The story was brilliant, and I’m not going to say it’s “incredible complex” that requires 10 hours of thought to barely understand it, but this concept had pretty much never been seen before and the story could’ve easily been so much worse. And combined with the editing, the story is elevated to a whole other level. The film has themes of reality and dreams and shows the parallels between the two. It shows how dreams can feel real and how in a certain point of way they are real. It’s very similar to A Nightmare On Elm Street in that regard. Something which I don’t think I’ve talked about in my previous reviews is the dialogue. Inception contains a lot of exposition, and I mean a lot. Every scene has exposition in one way or another. I do admit that the exposition in Inception is abundant, but I believe that it is necessary. Others think it weakens the film, but I believe the exposition actually strengthens the film. Many people believe that the story is in Cobb’s point of view throughout the film, but I actually think that we are in Ariadne’s point of view. She is completely new to the entire extraction process. We are the only ones who also are completely unaware of extraction/inception. Therefore, when the teams teaches her about the process of Inception, we are also learning too. When Ariadne presses the bottom floor in the dream out of curiosity, we are also curious and are hoping to see what is down there. Also, the information of Inception was perfectly introduced. The film could’ve just bombarded us with all of the exposition at the beginning, but Inception spreads it out throughout the movie so that we can easily take in the important details. Also, it allows those expositional details to be introduced only when they’re relevant currently. For example, they could’ve easily said that they were heavily sedated in the dream, meaning they wouldn’t wake up if they died, but instead waited until Saito was actively dying in the dream. Some people criticize the film for its exposition, but I believe that Inception is a lesson on how to successfully use an abundant amount of exposition. I think that the use of exposition in Inception was one of the major strengths of the film.