3 mistakes Inception makes
Posted: November 30th, 2015, 2:28 pm
Inception was a great movie, one of the most ambitious creative films of all time. It was so close to being the Muhammad Ali of movies, but in my opinion, it fell short. Nolan wanted to make an epic big budget movie that was a mindbending thriller but also wanted to it make it accessible to the average moviegoer who tends to prefer straightforward action movies.
Here are the mistakes I think the film makes (the first 2 could be fixed by a Blade Runner-like director's cut):
1) Too much spoonfeeding. Instead of telling the viewer early on that Cobb plans do an inception rather than an extraction, they should have just left his motives a mystery until half-way into the movie it's revealed what he actually plans to do. It would've been a great twist. Also, at various points in the movie, the Nolan's characters explain the plot in their dialogue instead of allowing the viewer to discern it for themselves.
2) Too much gratuitous action. At 2 1/2 hours it feels a little bit bloated and could've easily been tightened up by trimming 15 minutes from it. The skiing scenes particularly feel like they were put there just because movies are obliged to have a big set piece in the third act. The directing on the skiing scenes was a bit sloppy, it was a confusing flurry (no pun intended), it didn't add much to the story and the characters were indistinguishable half of the time.
3) Lack of strong characters. None of the characters were bad, but an amazing character could have done so much more for this movie. Cobb and his wife are well done but the relationships between him and Ariande could have been expanded on and given a little more emotional weight. DiCaprio and Page were good safe choices, but probably better people could have been cast. The supporting cast that accompanies them in the heist could have been fleshed out too.
Here are the mistakes I think the film makes (the first 2 could be fixed by a Blade Runner-like director's cut):
1) Too much spoonfeeding. Instead of telling the viewer early on that Cobb plans do an inception rather than an extraction, they should have just left his motives a mystery until half-way into the movie it's revealed what he actually plans to do. It would've been a great twist. Also, at various points in the movie, the Nolan's characters explain the plot in their dialogue instead of allowing the viewer to discern it for themselves.
2) Too much gratuitous action. At 2 1/2 hours it feels a little bit bloated and could've easily been tightened up by trimming 15 minutes from it. The skiing scenes particularly feel like they were put there just because movies are obliged to have a big set piece in the third act. The directing on the skiing scenes was a bit sloppy, it was a confusing flurry (no pun intended), it didn't add much to the story and the characters were indistinguishable half of the time.
3) Lack of strong characters. None of the characters were bad, but an amazing character could have done so much more for this movie. Cobb and his wife are well done but the relationships between him and Ariande could have been expanded on and given a little more emotional weight. DiCaprio and Page were good safe choices, but probably better people could have been cast. The supporting cast that accompanies them in the heist could have been fleshed out too.