Inception

I’ve complained before about simple-minded and scientifically awful and just plain stupid science fiction films, which just happens to be about 95% of them, but sometimes a movie can be just too clever for its own good. This one concerns a sort of “Mission Impossible” team that is using a technology whereby one’s dreams can be invaded and manipulated such that someone can be tricked into revealing information he doesn’t want to reveal. Or, in the case of this special mission, to lead someone into changing his mind about something and never realizing he has been played. Very quickly we are into a dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream scenario (I counted five levels, but I could have missed one) that seems to be logically thought out and that stays consistent within the parameters we have been told. But that means that the movie must proceed at such a breakneck pace that I never had a chance to really care about anybody in it. By the end the action was proceeding in five locations at five different time scales in four different dream locales plus one that might be real, which was at least one too many. It must be said that the special effects were dazzling, and included some scenes that I hadn’t seen before, but the fairly prosaic fights and explosions took away from, instead of added to, the sense of wonder. I’ll give them an A for effort, but a C for execution. Still, if you like mind games, you’ll probably enjoy this.