"Inception" Review Breakdowns by Andrew Marvin

“Inception”

Theme and director’s intention

“Call it the Emperor’s New Bedclothes: “Inception,” the first feature since Nolan’s enormously successful “The Dark Knight,” is a movie about dreams and, alas, one that may well merit the appellation of “critic proof.” –Anderson, WSJ

“ Inception easily qualifies as the most highly anticipated movie of the summer, opens with a dramatic shot of a huge wave breaking onto a nameless shore, and that image suggests the best way to watch a film with such a tightly coiled plot, cerebral conceits and formidable ambition.” – Hornaday, Washington Post

“The film proposes that while you sleep, a team of “Mission: Impossible” types can invade your mind and extract-or insert- information, then sell it to your worst enemy.” – Corliss, TIME

Separate elements and their relationship to the whole

“Mr. DiCaprio is a wonderful actor as well as an engaging screen presence.” – Anderson, WSJ

“For all its consummate visual style, “Inception” boasts an astute sound design.” – Hornaday, Washington Post

“Marion Cotillard never looked so movie-star glamorous as she does here.” –Corliss, TIME

Objective evaluation of the film

“Inception convolutes the various planes of experience, by overlapping and obscuring ostensible realities and ostensible dreams, Mr. Nolan deprives us the opportunity of investing emotionally in any of it.” – Anderson, WSJ

“Inception” on first viewing, it’s best to let it wash over you, and save the head-scratching and inevitable Talmudie interpretations for later.” – Hornaday, Washington Post

“Though the plot is really one giant hallucination, it’s an experience that doesn’t blow your mind as much as challenges it.” –Corliss, TIME

Subjective evaluation of the film

“Inception is another confounding Chinese puzzle.” – Corliss, TIME

“Inception often plays as like the coolest “Ocean’s Eleven” installment ever made, albeit a fewer wisecracks and a much trippier caper.” –Hornaday, Washington Post

“It may be that Mr. Nolan is purposely making his story obscure so as not to distract from his phenomenal image-making.” –Anderson, WSJ

The film’s level of ambition

“Inception may be impervious to criticism, simply because no one short of a NASA systems analyst will be able to articulate the plot.” –Anderson, WSJ

“The key to success with a movie purposefully complex as this one is that you see it again not because you have to, but rather because you want to.” –Hornaday, Washington Post

“It’s a beautiful object, like a perpetually spinning top, not a living organism.” – Corliss, TIME

Words you found interesting.

Confounding as a Chinese puzzle

One giant hallucination