Inception

I saw the film Inception the other day. In many ways it is typical of the films that are coming out of Hollywood these days. The film starts with the main character played by Lionardo Dicaprio in a dream, the dream of his target, a wealthy Japanese businessman, played by Ken Wantabe. The Dicaprio character is in the dream to extract some secret information that is being sought by his employer, some company. In the dream there is another dream, and the Wantabe character is smart enough to figure out that the 2nd dream is not real life, and that he is still dreaming. They fail to extract the information, and therefore must run away. After waking they are about to leave Japan, when Mr. Wantabe intercepts them and lets them know that the whole exercise has been a test, and that he wishes to hire them to put an idea into the mind of his competitor, a Robert Fisher.

So one part of the story is a battle between two business tycoons, one wants the other one to break up a business empire. The second part is that the Dicaprio character is being haunted by the guilt of having been responsible for the suicide of his wife, who is now following him in the dream world.

Added to this is the idea that you need someone to construct the dream, and all the characters can participate in the same dream, and interact with each other. Furthermore, within the dreamworld the dreamer can produce armies to attack any interloper who is in his dream. So when the crack team led by Dicaprio enter the dream of the Tycoon Fischer, they are attacked by his mind which has been prepped to deal intruders.

Needless to say you have to take a lot of this stuff on face value. Why are ideas hidden in dreams, and not simply memory. How the hell can multiple people participate in the same dream, which remains mostly under the control of the dreamer, or a select person.

Unfortunately the movie devolves into a simple shoot em up action film, the various philosophical or theoretical issues are pushed aside. You are left with a whole lot of questions and very few answers.

The film doesn't really lead you to disappointment since the pacing implies a thoughtless and simple story line. It reminds me a lot of his previous film "The Prestige", or even "The Dark Knight". Needless to say you are left with a kind of empty feeling, which is surprising considering the potential.

I like science fiction, but this film falls far short of adequacy. A slightly entertaining action film is the best that can be said, with some cool visual effects, but nothing you haven't seen before. The first Matrix was much better and more profound.


On a personal note I am back in Tokyo. I started my first class on friday. It looks to be a very good class with lots of interesting discussions and material. I look forward to my writing assignments. The professor is really good also.