I agree, although I don't think there's anything wrong with that. If you honestly can't see the 3D picture everyone else can see, you don't see it and will write such. Maybe he was just expecting more, so didn't see the trees for the forest.

I've been reading his reviews for a good 30 years, and for the most part like him. He tends to grade on a sliding scale, where a silly summer film that's stupid fun like The Mummy 2 might get the same or better rating then an Woody Allen film that isn't as good as it should have been (to name one comparison he did make years ago). He had me as a fan when while reviewing some French film where the female lead spent all her time topless on the beach (possibly Paulina on the Beach), he wrote "All that and a plot too!" Being a teen I liked that honesty

The Buffalo News TV writer retired after 40 years last month and hasn't been replaced, apart from some columns by Simon who also does Jazz reviews, and I suspect when Simon retires we'll just get syndicated movie reviews. I'll have to enjoy his silliness while it lasts.

I'd worry the train would be over-done if it was done more-so.  If we're just talking about Cobb's subconscious intrusions happening more often, they are actually riddled through the levels.  Level 1's train was really just an inconvenience and nothing more.  It got in the way, then was gone.  Level 2's intrusions were interfering with Cobb's "Mr. Charlie" gambit and drawing a lot of attention from the subconscious.  Level 3's intrusion killed Fischer.

Again, there's only so much Cobbs' subconscious can actually do since he's not the architect.

Yeah, but what he wrote wasn't "I don't see what everyone else sees," he wrote "I don't see it and anyone who says he does is a lying wronghead."

The stakes WERE raised in the hotel.  The train was an inconvenience.  It pushed aside some cars and went on its merry way.  It wasn't even going fast enough to be a real danger to them.  In the hotel, Fischer's subconscious was having actual hostile responses to Cobb's projections.  They were becoming aware of him and targeting him when they shouldn't have.  The only person they should have been targeting was the architect (Arthur).  His projections actually made the task much more difficult.  Even more so in level 3, where his projection killed Fischer.

I do agree with you on his hesitation to shoot Mal.  He should know better.

No character development which lead to me also not caring about any characters, I found it strange I cared more about money hungry Ken Wantanabe more than Cobb/Dicaprio.

Had some awesome action, a la the zero-g fight. But it also had terrible action, SPECIFICALLY the scene in which Seito/Wantanabe gets shot. At one point there is an armed guy literally standing at the back of the taxi, firing round after round a foot from the people in the back seat. There are also a shit ton other guys all around, and it just never seemed plausible or realistic to me that only Seito gets shot once. Pretty much all the Michael Bay gun fight scenes and chases were done poorly, in my eyes.

I hate that I can't remember one piece of music except the "sync" music.

Ending shot was nothing more than a smack in the face, in my mind it falls but as Branco said, who cares really?

I like that theory the best, and like the way you put it the best.

I thought your comment about a ten second fall seemed wrong, so I Wolfram Alpha'd a bit. You're right, and in fact conservative. A 9.7 second free fall would get you 1,500 feet, 10 seconds would get you further.

If we assume the bridge was 100 feet up, the fall would have been roughly 2.5 seconds. 200 feet, 3.5 seconds. 300, 4.3 seconds. Well played, lady.

But when he goes back into the hotel room everyone and everything is flying around, which made me assume that their bodies in the next level lower would have felt the effect too, no?

Ahh I see what you're saying. Hmmm, I still think no matter how far down you are (maybe except Limbo) you should feel the effects. Ehh, starting to go either way on it.

Finally got time to watch this beast, and looooooooooved every minute of it. So freakin good.

Not really much to say, you guys have kinda covered it all, and I agree with most of it except for the sentiment that the dreams needed to be more wild and crazy, like normal dreams. Unless you are also suggesting that we change the way the universe is set up (Which is valid, i guess...but then we are just quibbling over artistic ideas), it does nt follow that the "dreams" should have been more wild and crazy. It's really all spelled out in the movie, or maybe that's just the way I put it all together, anyways, this is how I see it.

Basically, the "dreams" that extractors enter are not true dreams, in that they are very VERY tightly controlled to the maximum extent that they can be by the Architect; This is the entire point of the architect, he is there to keep the entire thing normalized. Anyways, in a normal dreams we basically hand our brains over to subconscious and tell it to have fun and try not to break anything, hence the bizarro what the fuck nature of most dreams. But this isn't the case with extractions (Or in this case Inception); in these, the subconscious mind of the dreamer is instead replaced with the very conciseness mind of the Architect. But obviously the mind is not completely predicable and oddities are bound to happen when you start messing with placing someone into another person dream, and hence we get the screaming mobs, the minds self defense.

Now with all that said, would I have loved to see the giant space squid fight a pack of rabid panda tigers? Hell yes!! Except that's not the movie Nolan wanted to make, so he built himself a universe in which these laws make sense and are justified, and god dammit he sticks to them. You can't fault the guy for that.

On the hand, as far as the kicks go, I honestly have no clue. The best I've got so far follows:

Basically I think that the external stimuli only works one level down (On those dreaming as it were), Real Life affects Yousef's, Yousef's affects Arthur's, Arthur's affects the Snowy place and the snowy place affects limbo.

And I am pretty sure, that you can only be kicked from the level you fell asleep in, and then once in that level you can be kicked in the next level up that you fell asleep in etc. Or in this case they plan the simultaneous kick so that they would all be pulled straight up into real life.

Although I'm fairly certain that gets broken a few times...(I still have no idea whats up with Page committing suicide, I'm not really sure how that helps anything.)

Yeah, that's the best I got. Now that could be due to the fact I just pulled a 12 hour animating sprint or the fact that I just don't know. Meh, we'll find out.

(EDIT: @Phi, the snow world didn't notice the van hitting the barrier as a physical thing, they worked it out from the music JGL was pumping into their architect to give them the cue (Hence the comment "No, It's to soon!") so I still hold it only works one level down. Also the inner ear part has nothing to do with faling in the dream, it has to do with the idea, that the inner ear still works in the "real" body, so that when that gets kicked the body feels it, freaks out and wakes the body up from the dream)

Last edited by BigDamnArtist (2010-07-25 16:22:04)

Bam.

The only thing that annoyed me with the film was limbo. It just doesn't make sense that limbo is shared with everyone, and that Cobb and Mal were the first ones there.