Inception

I had huge expectations for films that will be shown this year 2010, Iron Man 2 was flat and short even though it had a huge build up it really did not deliver like  I thought it would in terms of the plot and story. The special effects were top notch but the director Jon Favreau did not make good use of characters that were included on the film. I felt Mickey Rourke's Whiplash was not used effectively and he was easily defeated which I think was lame. 

2 films that I liked this year though were the autobiographical movies about the 2 great legends of our time. "Nowhere Boy" was about the troubled childhood of John Lennon and "Me and Orson Welles" about a boy stumbling his way into Orson Welle's  rise and his struggle in his theatre days.   

But the movie that I think defied expectations was of course "Inception" directed by Christopher Nolan, now I gotta say that Nolan's genius shines through every movie he has made and he has made a distinct visual style all his own. His dark visuals supported by his use of IMAX cameras make his films distinct and real especially if shown in film theatres. A notable example is "The Dark Knight" which is of course now touted as "The Godfather part 2" of superhero films.

The difference for "Inception" is it was shot using Vistavision and a 35 mm camera which helped in making it look more surreal as what Nolan had intended. But the big breakthrough for the film in my opinion is the concept of exploring a person's mind by infiltrating their dreams and somehow extracting or influencing ideas. This is like creating a new world and reality just like what "The Matrix" had done years before. Leonardo Dicaprio was one of the actors that I really hated years before especially when he made that ship movie with James Cameron, I thought the dude was just another flash in the pan matinee idol who likes to look good in film and earn a lot in the box office (like what Tom Cruise and Will Smith are doing nowadays). Little did I know that he would be one of this generation's best actors, he's given great performances throughout the years in films like "Catch Me if You Can", "The Aviator", "Blood Diamond", "The Departed", "Reservation Road" and most recently "Shutter Island".

In this film Dicaprio is Cobb the emotional center that drives the film, the man that extracts ideas and infiltrates people's dreams. He assembles a crack team of "professionals" to help him in his business  that includes an ensemble cast that will make any director drool. This includes the usual Nolan collaborator's Ken Watanabe as Saito the Tourist,Cillian Murphy as Robert Michael Fischer the Mark and Michael Caine as Miles, Cobb's mentor and father-in-law. But new to the fray (which I know some will be in Nolan's future films) are Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Arthur the Point Man, Tom Berenger as Peter Browning the Mark's godfather, Ellen Paige as Ariadne the Architect, Dileep Rao as Yusuf the Chemist, Tom Hardy as Eames the Forger, Pete Postlethwaite as Maurice Fischer the Mark's dying father, Lukas Haas as Nash, the first Architect who was replaced and Marion Cottilard as Mal Cobb, the Shade, Dom Cobb's deceased wife and the constant dark side that always screws with his head and causes disturbance in his dreams.
 

Even though the film is surrounded by a fantastic cast you know right away that Nolan's imprint on the film is everywhere, every movie that I have seen Nolan direct has a tortured character capable of extraordinary things in seemingly dark and hopeless situations. Also the special effects were brilliant especially the hotel hallway scene that amazed me, what made it work was the fact that the special effects were used as a necessity to the storyline rather than just be a part of a mindless action sequence that is typical in today's big budget hollywood films. 

The current reaction of the film today is mixed, some people hated it because the movie did not live up to the hype or "did not just get it". While some critics liked it's innovative storyline and sequences reminiscent of "The Matrix" before but on a more sophisticated level. Until now even on Twitter people are still talking about it, but I think that is the purpose of the movie and what Christopher Nolan had intended.

To me I think it is even superior than "The Dark Knight" but I think some people will definitely disagree, but it really doesn't matter if you liked it or not because if you have seen it on a movie theatre you still kissed Nolan's ass anyway. The buzz keeps on going and the film keeps earning profit like what happened in Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" years before .

Now I know a dozen directors would dream to even make this kind of film and I'm sure a lot of people will agree.

Grade: A