Posted on: Wednesday, July 21st, 2010
Posted in: Movie Reviews
Comments: 185
Inception Movie Review
Short Version: Inception not only offers all the amazing visuals and intense action of a summer blockbuster, but a very well-crated and intellectually stimulating storyline. This is the kinda sophisticated action film we need to see coming from Hollywood more often. Several days later its impression on me lingers. It’s premise of dream exploration and collective subconscious dares the audience to think deeper. Great Job Nolan!
Movie Review
Movie Discussion w/Spoilers!
What you’ll Like:
• A smart and unique Concept in a sea of unoriginal hollywood cash-grabs.
• Engaging,nearly hypnotic.
• Beautiful visuals and masterful FX shots.
• Joseph Gordon-Levitt is a Bad Ass.
• Best Moment: The simultaneous action between three levels of dreamworlds in the climax!
What you’ll Hate:
• It may be “too” complex for younger audiences to enjoy.
• Not much backstory to the technology and world beyond the characters personal stories.
• WTF?!: Where do they get the weapons in the dream worlds? If they can manifest them, why dont they manifest full body armor and rocket launchers?
Final Verdict:
9/10
EXCELLENT
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185 thoughts on “Inception Movie Review”
I personally do not think that he was in a dream in the very last scene. You can visibly see that the totem is beginning to wobble right as it cuts to the credits. Plus, if you pay attention to when Cobb wakes up on the plane, you’ll notice that everyone smiles and acknowledges him, but when he approaches Cillian Murphy (guy he was performing Inception on) he gives him a glance like he recognizes him from somewhere, but isn’t really sure who he is. This leads me to believe that because it was Murphy’s dream, he doesn’t remember any specifics about it other than the idea that was planted, which also hints that Cobb was actually in reality at the end.
have any of you noticed
DREAM WORLD, THE ARCHITECT ,PEOPLE TRYING TO STOP YOU OR WHATEVER ITS A REMAKE OF THE MATRIX
AM I THE ONLY ONE WHO CAN SEE THIS
did anyone notice that they said if anyone touchs your totem the whole idea of it is ruined? well the guards that found him on the beach picked up his totem so it could be a dream even if the totem stops spinning
i think the whole sequence after Cobb tested the sedatives in Yusuf’s place is a dream. As Cobb was never able to test his totem afterward (he did in the washroom but the top doesn’t spin nicely due to water drops), and as I can remember he saw Mal after he woke up (supposedly woke up), but it could be a hallucination. Just my take on movie, since it can be interpreted a lot of ways, like most of Philip K Dick’s short stories and movie adaptations (Total Recall anyone?). Cheers Joe
another thing towards the side that he was in reality at the end is that when he is in the dream world, he has his wedding ring on, but at the end he doesn’t.
Not retarded at all, Joe.
My take on all of this: For Cobb, it didn’t matter anymore. If the top stopped spinning at all, it doesn’t answer the question of Reality or Dream- if Cobb accepts the ‘dream’ as his reality, the top will stop spinning, because he doesn’t care anymore- he just wants to be with his family. Home.
That world is his dream. I suppose, after the inception job, he gets put in a coma, and he ends up there?
comments on your ideas:
1) it could be right, but it looked as if the top was going out of control before the credits rolled, implying that it was about to fall and that he is in reality, just how i took it.
2) very unlikely, the reason leo didn’t come home is that he had a price on his head from the colb corporation and the law would come after him as well, because he was suspected to have murdered his wife, was kind of a major point of him taking saito’s job and his depression throughout the movie
3) the scene at the beginning was a flash forward and did not have to do with the scene of them breaking into saito’s mind.
i agree, i was about to write down pretty much the same thoughts,
but i see, you sir have beat me to it.
Hey Joe !
So I’ll try and give in my vision of the movie though there might be two problems at the moment, I’m french so I hope I’ll stay understandable and I wasn’t able to watch it in Original Version so some parts of my vision of the movie might come from translation errors… that needed to be said.
Ok I guess for the Saito part the comments explain the whole stuff quite well, they make a circular script, that loses the audience a bit as in a good old Pulp Fiction and when Saito looks at Cobb’s totem, he says : “I knew a man who possess an item like this one” So he begin a tale and we watch this actual story until it comes back to the meal.
About the weapons, and thearmours there’s a really simple explanation I guess. They don’t use super badass stuff because if they imagine something really crazy and badass let’s say… Ironman’s armour ! The subconcious of the dreamer would realize that there is something unclear going on below and react quite violently to this kind of aggression.
Finaly about the end, I thought about two explanations. One is already explained in one of the comments I’ve read and I quite like this one : He’s still in a dream and his wife understood it so when she jumped she came back to reallity and she’s waiting for him with their children, only 5 minutes have passed.
The other possibility I see find its basis in a quote from the movie. Cobb says that his totem was his wife’s one and that she used to make it turn like forever (and there could be a translation error, but I’m pretty sure I heard that in the french version). So if it’s true, when he’s distracted by his kids he just launched it as his wife would have done it and it keeps on spinning like… forever !
These explanation may be retarded, but I think every interpretation may be as good as another. Maybe reading again some books about dreams could help like Freud or stuff like that…
Anyway, See you on the next show !
Okay, the Old Saito scene at the beginning is contiguous with the one at the ending, and is used as a framing device. Saito brings up how he met Cobb, when Cobb is attempting an extraction from him. This is a relatively common thing to do in movies, where you use your ending scene to begin the movie.
it was that the movies was a broken story. the end was first, then they explained everything so the movie went full circle and everything was explained.
I saw it as the totem stopped spinning and cobb was back in reality. I would like to see it again but with
the other theory implanted in my brain. one thing i need to figure out first is…
if cobb was in fact still stuck in limbo and mal has escaped, why cant she just wake him up?
they didnt take the heavy sedative so he should come straight out from just one ‘kick’
I saw it as the totem stopped spinning and he was back in reality. I would like to see it again but with
the other theory implanted in my brain. one thing i need to figure out first is…
if cobb was in fact still stuck in limbo and mal has escaped, why cant she just wake him up?
they didnt take the heavy sedative so he should come straight out from just one ‘kick’
Christopher is the theatre director who picture.otherwise.one. I want to tell you the truth, it was worthy the waiting.Batman Begins
Christopher is the director who quality.super.I have been waiting for . I wish to say you the truth, it was worth the waiting.knew
Okay. So I just got back from seeing Inception for the first time with my gf and it was great. The action was great, the concept was original, and the music was epic. I feel like I missed a lot and I probably did because we arrived at the theatre 5 mins after the movie started (I was assuming more previews. Silly me xP).
5/5
Um… my theories are retarded as well. But. Do you remember when Leo was testing out the new anesthetic he was going to use on Fisher? When he rushes to the bathroom and tries to spin the top, he gets distracted and drops it. So we never really found out whether he was still dreaming or not… What if everything that happened after that scene was a dream. The airplane, the van scene, the hotel, the ice mountains, Limbo (There was something about a hospital but I didn’t really catch that) could have all been dreams. That’s like 5-6 layers of dreaming (Holy Sh!t lol). The only problem is why would he not have woken up and who would be creating his dream unless he (or his wife) was trying to create a new reality for him. That’s just my quick take. Probably retarded as well, but that’s all I got. Great movie. I really hope they don’t make a sucky sequel. OR if he is trapped in Limbo, make a sequel where his team tries to save him (A little “save Jack Sparrow from Davy Jone’s locker” kind of sequence haha). Oh well. Great movie once again. Hope to see it again in the near future
Joe, you were confused on the ending. the very first scene with Cobb waking up on the beach and talking with aged Saito is the actual ending. The scene after that was the beginning of the plot. It was just a full circle ending. The setting was similar either because the Chinese restaurant was Saito’s true dream, or that Saito knew to create a world similar to the one Cobb infiltrated so Cobb would recognize it. I do , however, love how all of that epic-ness takes place within the process of ten hours.
Fyi, The top was totally going to fall.
The ending could be far better.
Remember the Sixth Sense?
Ok let´s go:
Remember how he lived 50 years on the multi-layered dreamworld he created with his wife? Then she believed that world was fake and then suicided to be able to wake up.
Imagine… just if… his wife was correct!
She really woke up after falling into the ground and Cobb is still dreaming in their house floor living in his dreamworld ever since.
It would be awesome that Cobb died at the end… and then he wakes up on the floor of his house… and his wife standing beside him saying: “hey you took a while… about 5 minutes”.
That would blow the HELL of anyone’s mind.
It would be amazing that in fact was HIM still trapped in the dreamworld all these years.
His wife would be alive, his children never missed their father and he was never wanted by the government.
It would be an ending like the sixth sense making everyone talk about it for generations.
Kick ass!
Just my 2 cents :3
My explanation for why the movie begins with old Saito:
Remember what Leo tells people when he wants them to realise it’s just a dream? He tells them to remember how they got there. That’s basically what the whole movie is ; Leo when facing old Saito was pretty much doubting himself of what’s real or not, so he starts “remembering” how he got there, in front of old Saito. I’m putting quotes on this because for the sake of story-telling, we don’t get only his point of view.
It’s either this, or it’s like a comment said, a straightforward classic movie beginning with the ending with no real explanation other than making the audience say “WTF”.
It was probably the best movie made in a few years. Love it.
About that scence where that guy is old, I think that it’s actually the same thing. In some Animes the fisrt episode is somewhere towards the middle and then they start from the begining on the second episode. Kinna like in Prototype where the whole game is basaclly a flashback untill the end boss. From time to time you see Alex(the cahrecter form prototype) talking to some soldier and explaning what happened. And that is what I belive that scene is, I hope I explaed it in an understandable way.
And for the ending, I’m not so sure it was a dream, I think that the totem was actually starting to stop and I recall him saying that in dreams it never stops.
(I know, lame joke…)
And it would have been more clear to understand if it was a dream or not if we knew for how much time he was gone, his children look the same as in his dreams, so if he wasn’t gone for too long than it could be real and not a dream.
I guess they made it on pourpose like that so that the veiwer would deside what happened, I guess they were kinna lazy
I really enjoyed this. It was incredibly enlightening and beneficial. I will certainly return to check on new posts.
I belive I understood this film quite well so I will answer your questions has best i can.
Question 1:
About making weapons and armour appear. I belive if you make armour appear the person’s mind will counter this by simply using armour peiceing rounds which will be more dangerous than normal round hench the team not using armour. Also the more equipment they bring with them the more the mind will attack. For example if there is mass serial killer on the loose, the police are tasked in taking them down. But if you give the killer miltery equipment and goes on taking out the police like a termator, the army will brought in to take him out. So I belive the mind isn’t attacking them at full force, but if they keep on summoning tools they are going to attract more attention and the mind will come down on them harder.
Question 2:
At the begining of the film cobb was barely consious so I belive he was remembering how he got there. A good example of this is mission impossible 3 where it starts with a scene later on in the film.
Question 3:
I belive he made back to reality because as it has already been mentioned, he could see his kids faces which he couldn’t in the dream world. Also the totem had started to tip and contiued to while in the dream world it never even slightly tipped. I belive this ending is there to be questioned and also so people don’t forget it, when the screen went black you heard a loud ohhhhhhhh from the people around you.
With regards to question #1, The weapons ,and armor were there because the Arcitect put them there when she created the dream in the first place. If they were able to just make the weapons appear, Fisher’s subconscious would have swarmed the warehouse enne masse.
I think it was dream because Cain said come back to reality and eveyone was looking at Leo at the end of the film. Also why would his totem be his wife’s because what was his totem before he got that one?
i just went to go see it and it good i just wish pepole will not chat threw the moive and never get up and in your line of site ever 15 min but good movie i must say i have to see it aging and i saw it in HD and the sound was amzing
I’m not quite sure how to explain how the movie would open up with a scene from the very end of it all. That’s the one part that eludes me the most. And I have to strongly disagree with your second explanation of it all. The ending that I got out of this movie was that Cobb did make it back to reality. Whenever Cobb was in his own dreams/memories, he could never actually see his childrens’ faces. But at the end, he is able to see them bright as day. Also, the totem was begining to lose its balance, unlike in the dream world where it would remain in perfect place. Overall, an amazing movie.
Ok Joe here is the explination. Not sure if you get it now or not but that scene with Sato at the beginning dose tie to the scene at the end. The scene with Sato and Leo trying to steal his idea was a test to see if he was the right guy to preform inception. The arcitech he had failed cause the dream world was not realistic enough.
So he assembled this team in exchange for his freedom. Leo was set up by his wife commiting suidice and made everyone believe he pushed her off the balcony.
When Sato gets killed he is thrust into that Limbo world with Mau. So Leo has to stay behind in order to save not only the head CEO he was preforming inception on but also to save Sato. So that brings us back to that beginning scene where Leo is trying to convince Sato to remember their arrangment and honor the agreement that if he preforms inception that he makes it so Leo is not a wanted man anymore. Cause if he is still wanted as soon as they get off that plane he is going to be arrested.
For the ending though the top did start to weave which in the dream world It wouldn’t do. It would spin endlessly. So the question is, did he ever make it out?
Its one of those movies you have to see again but hopefully this helps. Wheather it was one giant conspiracy is a bit far fetched. I just think Sato didn’t want to go bankrupt so he was testing Leo to see if he was the best to do something thought to be impossible.
well it hard to say really alot of stuff was going on in the movie like kick ass fights and other stuff and is was a very great and but i was waiting for the movie to start the last Air bender trailer came on me and my friends say out loud FUCKING CRAP and it was so funny
You will have to excuse my poor english.
Loved the movie, though I think it had 3 major plot holes. In the scene where Leo and the Architecht girl is in the snow and Leo starts yapping about the other team needing a shortcut. Why does she tell Leo about it? Why does she explain exactly where it is? That made no sense to me, they both know that Mal is gonna find it and possibly jeopordize the entire operation. Why doesnt Leo say “Listen idiot, if you have a shortcut report it to the other team, but dont do it untill im way over there by that tree were I cant possibly hear you”.
Another thing that bugged me is the one that you bring up. If the can manifest weapons then why not just make awesome no-need-2-reload weapons. That is if imagination is the only thing that is holding them back. Maybe it attracts the projections even more I dunno.
Third thing is kinda related to the previous complaint. If the architecht can fuck the world up as she goes, then WHY doesnt she put a giant wall up around the corporation dude when he’s at the vault and Mal is about to shoot him in the face? Again this made no sense to me. She was the architect of all the three worlds, right? If this is the case then why didnt she? Yes it attracts the retards, however the whole operation is blown if Mal shoots the guy, in which she has clearly shown before that she will.
I dunno, maybe I’m being a retard. I’m just 17 so dont bash at me to hard for maybe not understanding the movie correctly. Cheers!
I think the movie is fairly straight foward. The movie starts with end just to make u think “whats going on?” Then Sato tests Cobb to see how well he is at extracting. After seeing his skills he then believes he can get him to plant an idea in Fischer. Then the who team building goes on and they eventually get in Fischer’s mind and try to perform the inception but of course as it is a movie it is not that simple with Fischer being trained against inception, if u die in the dream u go to limbo and Mal coming to ruin everything. Well after a bunch of fighting in zero g and defeating an army of projections and making Fischer believe that the team is trying to help him we get towards the ending and you should pretty much understand the middle of the movie if u kept track of whats going on each layer of dreaming. Now Fischer and Sato are both pretty much dead first Cobb goes to save Fischer from his wife and he comes to a realization that he can’t keep this idea of his wife caged in his head and he must let go of her because she isn’t really his wife and he needs to a get a grip on reality and move past his guilt of indirectly killing his wife through inception. Now the architect girl I (forgot her name) gets kicked out with fischer, but Cobb stays. If you recall from earlier on in the movie, if u die in a dream under this heavy sedative you go to limbo instead of waking up. Cobb knows that Sato is in limbo and since Sato is the only one to lift the charges of allegedly killing his wife he decides to die in the dream and go to limbo and make Sato realize he is in a dream and limbo and wake up. Now if u recall from early on the more layers of dreaming, the faster the brain works, meaning there is more time in later levels than early ones, thats how Cobbs grew really old with his wife in their dream world but when they woke up they were still really young. Now how this relates with the movies ending is because that is the reason Sato is really old. Also this scene explains the beginning of the movie where we were like “whats this have to do with anything?” After Sato and Cobb realize their in a dream and they kill themselves to get out of the dream and into reality. Now the team goes on their own ways and it appears the inception was a success. Now we see Cobbs go home to his children and apparently all is fine he spins the top totem one last time to meke sure he is not dreaming but before he sees if it stopd he gets distracted by hischildren and leaves. The camera pans back to the top and it is still spinning but it begins to wobble later on, then the credit rolls and the movie ends. now this pretty much leads to either he is dreaming still or he is in reality and lives happily ever after. But this is iffy because I don’t now if in a shared dream if u die under heavy sedatives if everyone goes to the same limbo in the dreamers head because it was supposed to be i think your subconscious, so it wouldn’t make sense if Cobb found Sato if you go to your own subconscious unless in shared dreaming they is a shared limbo or something. but if there isnt a sort of shared limbo then maybe Cobb is still in limbo, either way the movie is complex and a truly great movie. Bette than most of the crap movies we have been getting lately like freaking avatar: the last airbender. I hate the last air bender it is probably one of the worst movies I have ever seen. I actually wanted to leave the theater while watching it and I actually felt I was wasting my time and life watching it.
Sato at the beginning is recalling with Cob(Leo) the incidents that led to SATO being in Limbo i.e. doing the inception on the rival businessman. Near the end Cob (Leo) then helps Sato realize he is in limbo. Next they all awake and Cob(Leo) now goes home to his family.
My Ending: At the end the top looks like it was about to tip over before the screen went black. So basically I believe that it is supposed to be what YOU want it to be.
But since Cobbs totem actually belongs ta Mal, that means you really can’t trust it, so Cobb could have stayed in limbo the whole time.
well…i have seen this movie only once and i am kinda disappointed cuz i dint understand most of the part and for leaving me with lot of qs…..(not that bright
)
Ending:(most possible)
well i think cobb(Leo) is in a limbo or a dream…
reason:
1: the spinner doesnt fall
2:the kids doesnt seem to be Grown up a bit(can be argued by saying all situation has took place within months coz his job is extraction :0)
btw like ur review angry joe
upload more abt movies….(review kick ass)
What happened to underwater Cobb. In the car. He didn’t get out. Wouldn’t he then die and wake up?
Well, because of the sedative one would go to Limbo when they died rather than waking up. Which is why Saito, and Fischer jr. went to Limbo after they were shot. If Cobb was still under the effects of the sedative, drowning in the car would only send him further into the dream worlds, and he was already four layers down.
Thats right, i knew it was something that i had forgotten. Genious movie by the way, really great.
Let me borrow some wise man’s words: OH MY GOD THIS IS THE GREATEST MOVIE I’VE EVER SEEN IN MY LIFE!!!
The part where saito is older is actually limbo, this is where saito has aged but cobb has managed to hold of aging somehow (most likely his training). this is where we assume they both kill themselves and leave.
I think why Saito is so much older in Limbo is because of the sedative and the time difference. Saito went to Limbo long before Cobb, and who knows how long Cobb spent there trying to find him.
Hey Joe, haven’t posted before but a big fan of the show.
I really did love this film, The Dark Knight skyrocketed onto my list of favorite movies so I was really psyched to see this one. Anyways a lot of people pointed out things I was going to say, such as the machine’s origin getting explained in the movie, etc. and I think that you may like the film even more on a second viewing, I personally think this movie is going to age very well… anyways my take on the film, in all honesty i personally felt that the token was going to stumble and fall, mostly because that ending ties things up the best, and without that it adds a lot of holes in the plot, which definitely can be filled up with speculation, quite imaginative speculation as well. However as much as I like this idea I honestly can’t accept it, mostly because of the kids… I could deal with the kids being in the same position as his memory, I could allow that, but I got the impression that Cobb had been gone for awhile, and the fact that his kids were still the same age as his memory is just too huge of a warning light to ignore. So the theory that I personally stand by is that when Saito took the gun off the table and shot himself out of limbo, however when he did that he woke up and pushed Cobb out of his subconscious and into Limbo where his mind filled things in with what he is wanting… essentially he is having a nice dream, which would continue for years until eventually he wakes up on the plane.
no in the ending Saito and Cobb were in a shared limbo, and Cobb’s limbo would have only filled with good things if he was consciously able to put them there
My interpretation:
————————–
Christopher Nolan wanted us to question the end. He actually forced the viewer to do so, but the ironic point in this questioning is that there is no yes and no, you can question it forever. You will find some arguments but if you search enough you will also fond counter-arguments.
It is like the… Penrose stairs, it never ends.
Awesome movie, awesome music, awesome plot, for me it’s a 10/10!
Can’t wait for the DVD.
For the amount of times they bring up that very paradox your reasoning makes some sense. It also brings back the intro they had for the movie, which was near the end. It made it all a closed circuit.
Personally I think Cobb is still in limbo, having not woken after the kicks that woke up everyone else. This also leaves open what happened to everyone else because if Cobb was still in another layer of dream world when he awoke then the last we saw of anyone else, they were still in the first layer of the dream.
As for the totems, I don’t think Cobb’s was very accurate because he took his wife’s. Everyone else made or came upon their own pieces, so that it was very special to them, but Cobb took his from another person.
Again, this is just some theory. I’ve only seen the movie once and it’s what I came away with.
I love your opinon and your comparison to the stairs.
The thing with Saito was just the usual starting at the end thing – we see the end of Cobb’s journey through limbo to find Saito and bring him back, then it flashes back to when he was in Saito’s mind, and then we see how that initial scene turns out near the end.
The problem with most theories being put forth about this film is that they all rely on things that aren’t shown in the film – to use Joe’s “Evil Corporation” theory as an example, there isn’t any scene in which this is hinted at, and is mostly pure speculation (theories stating that the whole film takes place in limbo also fall under this category). My own theory is that the dream began in Mombassa – when Cobb samples the sedative, his dream only lasts for a few seconds, while it was stated that the sedative causes 40 hours of dream time. More significant, however, is that Cobb never tests his totem after this point up until the end (where it stays spinning far longer than it was shown to spin when it fell in earlier scenes), and when he does attempt to use it immediately after the dream in Mombassa he is interrupted. Before this point, he is shown to use the totem after every dream, and despite entering dreams after this point, he never uses the totem again.
i think that cobb was the last person to test the dream machine or something and i stuck in some dream that seems so much like reality that he can actually go into dreams of other people in his dream
OR
he never left limbo and he subconciously created the world u see at the end
OR
it is the real world
OR
this movie is too complicated or too simple
Here’s my take on it. It’s very strongly implied that the “reality” in the movie was another level of dream. I think he was trying to excise the guilt of his Wife’s death from his subconscious.
This movie might fall prey to “The Matrix Effect” where people will keep asking the question: “Why don’t the people create supercool places or things in the dreamstate.” The best answer for that might be “Since they were trying to keep a low profile, doing really weird things would convince the subject of how unreal the whole thing is and in turn have all of the projections go completely feral and have the person wake up in the process.”
Watching this movie I felt reminded of various World of Darkness games most notably Mage. In that game they had a Paradox mechanic where you could alter reality so much before reality created a backlash so you had to be very creative and very subtle at the same time. There were also elements of Cyberpunk here also, where you had people “Dive” into virtual worlds while you had their companions keep an eye out for them while in that comatose state.
i’m to go see it on sunday and looks good.
I’m going to go to the movies on sunday and see it. I have seed the previews and it looks good. But want find that out for myself.
well this does sound good but i wasnt sure what it was about it if only because it looked strange but ok cool. by the way what are your thoughts about the new syvester stalone movie coming out, The Expendables?
The begining of the movie is just the intial dream of sato. Remember that that was a dream within a dream to begin with in satos mind making the time frame sato was living in feel like years which caused his old age. At the end of the film this same concept is experienced because Cobb needs to go into satos brain again and has to break sato from the same actions he did in his prior dream. Remember the concepts of a dream you dont remember a dream when you wake up so how would sato percieve this as being the same dream as prior. Another connection with the ending is that he did just wake up and all these people ernestly wanted to make this money. Case in point there is no correlation other than to mind fuck the audiance with the opening sato dream and the ending sato limbo dream
Love you show keep up the great work
It’s all a dream, all a dream.
Christopher Nolan is a genius he used the plot holes as hints for example in the “real” world he goes to Mombassa and the agents just suddenly appear and try to kill him, how did they get there? How did Watanabe’s character just suddenly appear in his vehicle and to come save Cobb and the other dude? How did he know that Cobb was there? How did he know what the street that he ran out of? Because Cobb needed the help and made it a reality because he is dreaming, his subconsciousness saved him. Also there is many, many hints throughout the story like how they made Cillian Murphy’s character turn against his subconscious protectors, that is a clue that Cobb had done the same thing earlier. His wife saying that she made the authorities think that he had killed her made him believe that they were against him so now he is running and also what kind of Law enforcement officer would believe that he killed her, according to his flash back he was on the opposite building how could he have killed her besides using some kind of projectile? What grounds did the officers have to charge him with murder?
It is also of interest that the memento used by him was his wife’s not in essence truly his, he cannot at all rely on it the ending was a trick as it did not matter if it fell or not, notice he never used it ever in any of the “dream” sequences? it would have stopped and fell.
In the end the story wasn’t about the Inception that was just a metaphor created by his psyche to face his inner daemons about his wife, everything is a fabrication of his mind that is why he can’t “create” dreams any more because he is creating his own already but he can but in his mind he is using Juno’s character to make his own through her she is apart of his subconcious telling him to fight against his guilt. This also explain’s the side character’s lack of true motivation they don’t need motivation because they are there because he want them to be, because he needs them to be a good clue of this is when he sayds after Juno goes. “she’ll be back” and bang she’s back.
I think you are spot on with the entire contents of the movie being a dream that Cobb doesn’t realize he is in.
The chase scene in Mobassa is a strong hint, but I think the spinning top is the smoking gun. Whether not or not it spins is a distraction the movie-makers give us. I’ve noticed people contemplating that while forgetting that Cobb finds the top in the dream world he created with his wife. (Remember the scene where he opens the safe in her childhood home?) The fact that the top is there at all, to me, proves he is still in a dream world, and he has the top the whole movie.
There are a couple smaller hints I wrote up on my tumblr. http://tumblr.com/xgre5e34b
The funny thing is with this interpretation, his crazy wife was right all along, and is presumably awake in the real world with their real children wishing her husband would wake up from his dreams.
YES!
You, sir, are a gentleman and a scholar! Thank you so much for pointing to this simple fact which I so COMPLETELY overlooked. The spinning thing was just a red herring all along! And boy, did I ever fall for that. It kinda reminds me of “the invisible gorilla” experiment, same basic principle. Christopher Nolan trolled his audiences! ;D Amazing. It really makes me wanna go and see it one more time, just to pay attention some more this time around!
That IS a great theory.
I saw this yesterday, and had a blast. Almost masterpiece of a movie. It was mentally challenging without being pretentious, and yet still there was no boring moment. But I didnt consider this movie too complex, took things on their facevalue and I could follow it quite easily through the dream levels and so on and it all made sense, beginning and all. And I did consider the ending to be real world as we do see that the totem is just about to wobble before credits. Very layered stuff, but simple.
But then again we cant be so sure about everything. And now that I’ve read some theories I truly realise how screwed up this movie is, nothing makes sense anymore. Bravo Nolan!
I loved Phelous at the end
When I try to reply Alpha Protocol, I just get “Page not found”.
This is my take on it. The first scene where Leo wakes up on the beach, and is brought before old Saito, (Ken Watanabe) is a flashback. The movie shows you whats going to happen at the end, and then proceeds to show everything leading up to that exchange. So the events really start in the mansion at the beach when Saito was original age. The movie then ends with Leo having to go back to that mansion to retrieve Saito from the limbo of his own mind, and because he’s so deep within the layers of a dream, to him, he’s been waiting a lifetime. That scene, in a way, book-ends the movie. The question I have is this; they set up in the movie that in order to wake yourself up, you have to die in the dream, and they also set up that you can grow old in a dream as you spend time there. Can you then die of old age within your own dream, or do you age forever until you are woken up by an outside influence?
You guys are challenged, what Jacob says is mostly right except DiCaprio shows up on the shore of limbo a second time which means something happened to get him there. What happened was that Mol killed him but it didnt send him back to the real world because she wasnt actually real or a memory. WHat sent Cob (dicaprio) and Mol back last time was that the train was actually part of his memory (Mol stabbing him with the knife after he told her she wasnt good enough wasnt part of his memory). So he ends up on the shore again. Sato (asian dude) kills dicaprio and then himself (he IS real). We know this because Dicaprio reminds him and then Dicaprio wakes up first and watches Sato (asian guy wake up). THen next part is that when he sees his kids IS A DREAM! After everyone wakes up dicaprio looks up and then everything is black again. HE PUTS THE LITTLE CORD TO HIS VEIN AGAIN AND DREAMS WHAT HIS RETURN WILL BE LIKE. We know this because his dad is wearing THE EXACT SAME THING, and so are his kids. His kids also havent aged and the Grandma isnt there. THe main clue though is that when COB (dicaprio) looks at everyone and watches people awaken. It goes black and the next thing u see is HE IS LOOKING AT THE MARK THAT THE VEIN TUBE LEFT, or as it may decieve people putting his watch after security. But unlike when Sato (asian guy) is tricked into 2 dreams and then finds out and sees a hole looking opening, DICAPRIO DOES NOT!! IF HE WASNT DREAMING THEN IT WOULD BE THERE. See the movie twice its worth it and it helps, plus if you take a friend u can call them a retard when they dont get things in the movie
alright, the only problem I had with this movie, ( I dont really care about endings or meanings right now) was that in the first dream sequence, when the van is falling, theres no gravity in the second dream sequence, I can agree with that, but since theres no gravity in the second dream sequence shouldnt that then cause the same effect in the third and fourth? thats really my only complaint (in continuity) in this movie….
Okay now the ending…alright, we saw everyone get progressively kicked in order out of each dream, so that all went well for them, but leonardo (im sorry I only remember the actors names and not there characters names themselves) comes straight from the fourth dream sequence into reality, which implies (somewhat) that the same thing that happened to his wife has happened to him, but the exact opposite, he thinks hes in reality then in limbo while she thought she was in limbo while she was in reality. They just didn’t show us what happened with the rest of the characters, only from leonardo’s perspective, and that is why the top doesnt stop spinning at the end, hes still in limbo.
One more thing…leonardo’s character was pissing me off that entire movie, he just kept fuckin up, while joseph gordon levitt, he was badass, what he did in anti grav to kick them out of dreaming…awesome
man that was long winded XD
The story wasn’t complicated at all. In the beginning that scene is used as an intro just like Dare Devil. From there the movie smoothly modulates into the first scene which is them trying to grab an idea from sato. They did a double dream set up. After sato wakes up he rubs his face on the carpet and realizes its still a dream because their Architect put the wrong carpet into the dream sequence (What a dumbass) The whole double dream sequence is going on inside a train and when the dream is over they leave him there and they fire their current architect who is still a dumb ass. Sato makes a proposition that if Leonardo can plant an idea into that kid’s head to break up the corporation he would let Leonardo go home to his family since he was blamed for the death of his wife. Leonardo goes to his father in law in search of a new architect and finds the girl. He sedates the girl and introduces her to the world of the dreams. They get a dream team together, go on a plane with the kid that they are targeting and all go into the first dream sequence. The flight is 10 hours each hour is equal to a year. So they are supposedly in the dream for 10 years. From the first dream which a city of rain, they go into sequence two which is a hotel and leave one man awake to give the kickback (they are all still really on the plane). Leonardo tricks the kid into trusting him and brings him to a hotel room and leaves another man behind to give a second kickback and they all go into dream sequence three. By the time they reach three the man driving the car in sequence one is ready to give the first kickback. In sequence one, the driver has 10 seconds until kickback, in sequence two, the man in the hotel has 3 minute, and in sequence three they all have 17 minutes. Remember they are all still asleep. As all of this is happening sato is slowly dying in the first dream sequence and near the the end of sequence three he goes into limbo/dies which leads to the last scene. The last scene is the first scene hence they are both the same thing; the first scene was only used to make the movie interesting from the start and to help the movie smoothly transition into the first real scene. Leonardo’s dead wife/ his subconscious
kills the boy making the whole mission pointless. The new architect/ the girl says that they should go into limbo and shake the boy back to life. They do that and he plants the idea in his own head that he should dissolve the company. Win! Everyone goes into kick back. Leonardo tells his subconscious wife to fuck off and that leads to the last scene which is the first scene where he goes to save sato and wake him up. And he does. He goes home to his kids and sees their faces for the first time. Note that he says he never got to see their faces before he left them and every time he saw the subconscious versions of them, they never turned their heads towards him. So when he did, you knew that he was finally awake. And the totum was just a stupid idea to throw people off and to make them feel more mind fucked. They movie was very simple and it wasn’t that complicated to begin with. The whole movie was very straight forward. Plus I understood it because I already saw all the Matrix movies which was basically the same thing as this movie but without agent smith, the machines, and zion. It was a great movie though. I had fun while watching it.
I totally agree with you. I don’t thimk the last scene (kids scene) was a dream.
I think the problem with your interpretation is that your adamantly refusing alternate possibilities. and there are a few flaws with your reasoning particularly about leo’s kids. the movie never said that he didn’t see his kids faces, just that he didn’t take that one last opportunity to see it. when you add this to the fact that a dream doesn’t have to perfectly resemble a memory and his kids ARE IN THE EXACT SAME POSITION AT THE END HAS THEY WERE IN THE MEMORY, that leads to a very strong possibility that leo’s character is still in a dream. yes the possibility that he’s awake is a valid interpretation but if you outright refuse all others and belive were over complicating it (as you seem to imply) your actually missing out on a big part of the movie, it was made to be open to different interpretations and for events to be interpreted differently. personally I believe the idea that the whole movie was a dream and Leo’s character never actually woke up from the dream with his wife (has others have pointed out his totem isn’t very reliable)
I am 14 and I understood it pretty well I mean yeah there were a couple of flaws but how often do films like this come out?
Also, this is for you Joe, The Machine that allows them to do this all was used for military applications like training soldiers and stuff. They say it in the movie, just they don’t really go into detail.