Movie Review: Inception

Sci-fi films are not my cup of tea. In fact, my brush with sci-fi films has only been the Star Wars franchise – yes, I’ve watched all of it, though not in the order that the films were produced – I wasn’t born yet when the Star Wars mania blasted in Earth, instead, I’ve watched them in chronological order. My favourite ‘evil’ character is still the Darth Maul though.

Anyway. Back to Inception.

What do you understand from the term inception?

The simple explanation would be to plan an idea inside someone’s head.
The longer explanation would be to plan a very basic idea deep into a person’s mind and allow the idea to manifest itself into a decision that appears to be thought out by the person himself. The gist of it is that this person will not feel ‘forced’ into making a decision but instead has come to the conclusion himself, even though the idea has been forced into his head to begin with.

To cut the long story short, it’s about Cobb (Leonardo Di Caprio), a con-man hired by Saito (Ken Watanabe), a businessman, to bring down the empire of his rival Fisher – a terminally ill man whose empire will be taken over by the son, by planting an idea to stop Fisher’s son to succeed in the elder Fisher’s empire.

Cobb initially refuses, but Saito promised him that he’ll be able to return into the country, to be with his children, prompting Cobb to agree. Apparently, Cobb has a deceased wife who was his ‘partner-in-crime’ whom was so addicted to surviving in the world of dreams that she drew up legal documents blaming Cobb for trying to kill her in an attempt to get him to return to the ‘real’ world (real to her which is the dream world in reality) and committed suicide in the land of reality (and suicide, as we all know, is an irreversible process).

Here I have to bring out another ‘fact’ of the film. When you die in dream world, you wake up in reality. So theoretically Cobb’s wife died thinking that she’ll wake up from her dream world (which is the real world) when she dies. Sad, isn’t it.

To carry out this mission, Cobb has recruited his team consisting of a forger - Eames, Yusuf the guy who mixes the sedatives, and architect Ariadne who designs the dream locations and of course, his trusty partner Arthur. Not to forget, Saito, who wants to make sure Cobb does his job.

Following near misses and mishaps and a near death of one of the members, the idea has finally been implanted deep into the brain of Fisher’s son.

Whether the plan was successful or not, it was up to personal interpretation, and whether Cobb managed to find his way back into the country to be with his children or is he still stuck in dream land is also up to personal interpretation, for the film ends off without giving a final full-stop in the end, leaving some viewers feeling unsatisfied.

But no matter what, in my opinion, I believe to Cobb, it didn’t matter anymore, for he is satisfied with the outcome.

It’s not one of those movies that I’ll like to watch, for my motive to enter the Cineplex is to be entertained and not to use my brains, but I guess, once in a while, these sort of ‘deep’ and ‘heavy’ plot movies are refreshing to the eyes.

Do note that the above content is a very rough gist/ plot of the movie. Do yourself a favor and watch the entire movie, for I’ve deliberately skipped quite a lot so as not to spoil the movie for those who have yet to catch this movie.

I really hope I can fall asleep and not think about dreaming - or whether I'm in reality or dreamland. HAHA!

Enjoy!