Inception - Thumbs Up or Down?

[RangerWickett]

One small fact, there were two actors for each of the kids, at different ages. I noticed it in the credits the second time I watched the movie. I suppose if we had screenshots we could see that the kids look different.

Though I'm not sure if that means "kids at age in his memory when he ran away," and "kids when he got back at the end." Or if it's "kids on the beach, which was an older memory," and "kids in his memory."

 

[Siberys]

I didn't see it as a mindscrew. Just different layers and many different ways one can and probably should interpret the film. There's the love story and then there's the caper. Whatever else one would like to attach to the film is what they brought with them or, more likely, read between the lines. And no one would be fair in saying they are wrong.

Eh, maybe our definitions of 'mindscrew' differ? All I know is that, during the movie, I felt like I was keeping up with the plot. I understood what was going on. The only thing I really missed was the references to Greek mythology, but that's not my strong point, so hopefully it's forgivable.

Then the damn

Spoiler

top wobbled

, and I left the theater confused as all hell. That one simple detail made the movie - which FELT as if it were going to end unambiguously - into a total mindscrew. The different interpretations don't even enter here - those come afterwards. The movie was a masterful bait-and-switch there at the end.

IMV, of course.

 

[John Crichton]

Eh, maybe our definitions of 'mindscrew' differ?

Very likely.

Fight Club was a massive mindscrew as was Dark City to me. Those flicks left nothing to interpret. It was clearly spelled out that what came before had all changed and needed to be viewed with a different perspective. Now, the same thing happened with Inception but the whole movie was leaning that way as deception lead the way to more of the same which lessened the effect for me. I don't expect everyone to agree.

Again, I think the true genius of the movie is that there really are different ways to look at what went down. Many interpretations are possible and they are all legit.

Then the damn

Spoiler

top wobbled

, and I left the theater confused as all hell. That one simple detail made the movie - which FELT as if it were going to end unambiguously - into a total mindscrew. The different interpretations don't even enter here - those come afterwards. The movie was a masterful bait-and-switch there at the end.

And that's the beauty of it. It doesn't have to be a bait and switch.

Just one way to look at it.

 

[Deset Gled]

Am I the only person that thought

Spoiler

it would have been much more effective if the film ended one shot earlier? That is, still have Leo spin the top and then walk away to visit his kids, but never show the top again. The film would have ended with the shot of Leo reuniting with his children. It would have been a lot more emotional and just as ambiguous, but much less in-your-face.

 

[wolff96]

My theory, which I really enjoy is

Spoiler

that it was all just a dream until Cobb left the plane. The mind-suitcase technology, Extraction/Inception, Cobb's murder charges -- all just a dream.

Cobb was a man depressed after his wife's suicide, and so lived abroad for a while, but then was persuaded to come home and be with his kids. On the flight, he fell asleep, and the whole film is his dream- all of characters who were the "partners in the scheme" were just other passengers on the plane.

There were no murder charges. Mal hung a big fat lampshade on "A bunch of people chasing you around the world" when he was in "limbo" -- that feeling of massive persecution by faceless individuals and mega-corporations. She might not even be dead, just on the other side of a messy divorce or something like that. All we saw was a long, long dream from a guy who inserted the people around him into it, including an Asian man who had a propensity for making phone calls during the flight, a friendly man who bumped into the guy in front of Cobb's seat, an attractive young woman across from him...

Yeah, it's kind of out there compared to the simpler "all a dream" or "not a dream and he woke up at the end", but I really like it and it's pretty elegant. Looked at from this perspective, it's not even really a Sci-Fi film...

 

[jonesy]

Am I the only person that thought

Spoiler

it would have been much more effective if the film ended one shot earlier? That is, still have Leo spin the top and then walk away to visit his kids, but never show the top again. The film would have ended with the shot of Leo reuniting with his children. It would have been a lot more emotional and just as ambiguous, but much less in-your-face.

Not really. I think that would have been more in your face, not less. Now, I said that I liked 13th Floor more, but the Inception ending, at least for me, worked a lot better. Ambiguity is king.

Spoiler

Wobble wobble wobble =)

 

[Krug]

Yeap I don't really see how else he could have ended it. Too simple if he just ended it with the kids.

 

[FoxWander]

I loved it. Great film, masterfully shot, fully consistent with its own ideas, and then the one bit at the end to instill doubt. And that reveals the true point of the film.

The "inception" wasn't what you saw in the movie- it's what happened to the audience.

Everyone left the film with their OWN IDEA of what was really happening and what that ending meant. In just this 2-page thread there are at least 3 different interpretations. A film that can take its own idea and go meta with it- that's a masterpiece!

 

[AdmundfortGeographer]

Everyone left the film with their OWN IDEA of what was really happening and what that ending meant.

Indeed, my own was

Spoiler

that the entire movie Cobb was in Limbo. Everything we saw was entirely in Cobb's dreams. Everyone we saw on his team were part of a team outside Cobb's own dream participating in an elaborate mission to embed the idea in Cobb's mind of doubt, belief that Cobb was in Limbo himself, in order to get Cobb out.

 

[Joker]

Find out when a showing of Inception ends.

Follow someone or a small group of people around who have seen the movie.

Play [ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3Kvu6Kgp88&feature=related]YouTube - Edith Piaf - Non, Je ne regrette rien[/ame] without letting them know it's coming from you.

It's somewhat less funny if they end up killing themselves though. I'm still working out the kinks.