Leonardo DiCaprio et al
Billed as a contemporary sci-fi action thriller set within the architecture of the mind. “This summer, your mind is the scene of the crime.”
DiCaprio is ‘Cobb’, a master at the art of ‘extraction’, the ability to enter a person’s dreams and steal their deepest secrets. He is persuaded to try ‘inception’, the opposite of extraction, and plant an idea in the mind of an individual.
This involves a team of extraction experts in a convoluted, confusing, pointless two and a half hours of special effects action sequence after special effects action sequence. There is no substance to the ‘plot’ or any of the characters. There is no explanation as to how or why Cobb is a master at this ‘art’ and who he does it for or why. There is no demonstration of why the ‘team’ is a team.
The plot itself is paper thin and one-dimensional in just the same way as the characters are portrayed as one-dimensional with no ‘back-story’ to explain who they are and why they are there doing what they’re doing. There is no depth to the plot at all and certainly no sub plot or ‘twist’ in the entire film until the painfully obvious and clumsy ending.
No real motivation for the plot itself (other than Cobb wanting to go home and see his children) and what the consequences are should they succeed or fail means the whole movie is a sequence of lavish set pieces that just fails to hang together as a coherent story that we actually care about. There is no ‘real’ drama or peril that involves the audience to truly stir any emotions other than boredom and wishing the film would end so we can go home!
The characters are not developed at all so we have no empathy or understanding of them as real people we care about. In short, we do not care if they live or die or whether they succeed or fail in their ‘mission’.
A cameo role from Michael Caine is also a pointless addition and actually involves two confusing locations, a seemingly obvious hint that he is the originator of ‘extraction’ and a strange resolution (won’t say any more to avoid spoiling the story should you wish to see it!).
All in all, a huge missed opportunity to create a great film from a very original idea. I couldn’t wait to be EXTRACTED from the cinema.
