Movies with Chris and Greg
By CHRIS HERREN & GREG ABREU
148 minutes
WHY WE CHOSE IT – I originally didn’t want to see it because I thought it would be convoluted and confusing. I was right. It’s all that, but it’s also more.
ONE SENTENCE PLOT – A pair of con men who make a living by stealing ideas while people are dreaming, are hired to plant an idea into the dream-mind of a corporate mogul as part of an ambitious international corporate espionage scheme.
SUBTEXT – Dream? Reality? How do we tell the difference? There’s a fine line between dreams and nightmares, even without Freddie Krueger in the house.
CAST – Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe, Dileep Rao, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger, Michael Caine.
WARNINGS – Rated: PG-13 – violence. And viewer apathy.
GREG’s TAKE – I have a problem reviewing INCEPTION — three days after watching it, there’s parts I can’t remember. Maybe it’s because this film is about the struggle to distinguish the dream world from the conscious world. Maybe it’s because this film gets so confused that my subconscious mind called ‘Uncle!” Maybe it’s because this film gave up trying to be coherent, and decided to get cute with a gimmicky vague ending. My vote — all the above.
Loyal readers will recall that I bitch and moan about Hollowwood movies being too stupid to wear velcro shoes. This time, they may have made a film that was too smart for its own good. As I said in our AVATAR review, I dig flicks which explore the gauzy barrier between our dreams and what we presumptuously call reality. For the first two acts, INCEPTION mesmerized me with its dense content, its deft use of CGI, its sharp pacing without obtrusive sonic jolts, and for skillfully transporting me to another reality, complete with its own rules, without the murky jungian dream imagery that burdens other dream films. Then INCEPTION kept going. And going, and going, deeper down the rabbit hole of dreams within dreams, within dreams, until I wondered if it would succumb to the same pitfalls that crippled MISSION IMPOSSIBLE II — when MI-2 got in over its head in jumbled plotting, MI-2’s only escape route was to start peeling off one fake rubber face mask after another, until we viewers no longer could trust anything we saw. That forces viewers into one of two camps — either you give up and sit back and marvel at the flashing lights, or you keep your brain engaged and realize that the writers drove you down a dead end road, and the only way out is for the film to say: “You know that stuff you thought was real? It’s not real after all….or maybe it is….or maybe it’s not…or….” Whatever. If you’re the first type of viewer, you’ll like INCEPTION a lot. If you’re the second type of viewer, like me, then by the time the movie ends (or DOES it end?), you’re “dreamed out,” and you no longer care if it’s live or if it’s Memorex. Part of the risk of playing with dreams versus reality is that, if done for too long, you stop caring what’s what. The dreams become a nightmare, and you just want it to end.
CHRIS’s TAKE – Beautifully written by DARK KNIGHT Director Christopher Nolan, this film will keep you in frigid suspense scene after scene as you are taken to the subconscious depths of the dream underworld. A “SMART” movie as Greg would say, but AGREEABLY so, this one will have you feeling dumber than a BP Oil exec. Calculated and intentional, this mood was ingeniously injected by Nolan to setup the overall tone of the movie. Surprisingly soon emerge an engaging storyline merging Freudian Dreamscape with linear reality. The result being one nicely cooked lumpia ready for a Lucky Chance buffet. So to dream or not to dream is the question and for you sci-fi psychological fan boys this may be the blue pill to swallow. Or choke on as Manong HAPPY did, but I think we can both agree that this film is best described as MATRIX (1999) meets Mission Impossible 3 (2006).
CUT TO THE CHASE – Watch it now if you want a summer film which fires on all cylinders, but be forewarned – it may blow your head gaskets. If you want mindless entertainment, skip this one and see A SALTy Sorcerer’s Apprentice.
LUMPIA RATING – Greg – 4 shanghai Lumpia ; Chris – 4 malake Lumpia. (out of 5)
WHY WE DIDN’T SEE – A SORCERER’S APPRENTICE or SALT – The first is harmless brain candy. To believe the second film, you gotta be dreaming.
(Chris and Greg area couple of regular Filipino-American guys who love and study movies. Chris is the Gen Xer who has dabbled in acting and screenwriting, and has a Ph.D in Psychology. Greg is the baby boomer 20 years senior to Chris, has dabbled in screenwriting and freelance journalism, and has three degrees. Chris and Greg are friends and co-workers dedicated to their day jobs working for Uncle Sam.)
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