Tag: Christopher Nolan

Inception (2010, Christopher Nolan)

Inception is a moderately engaging, globe-trotting adventure. On any reflection, it’s also mind-numbingly dumb.

What’s brilliant is how Nolan packages it. He takes a heist film, with all its inherent engagement, and triples it. Three times the things going wrong and the characters having to figure out new, CG-aided solutions.

Another smart move is making it a future movie without any future stuff. By never explaining Inception’s dream science, Nolan doesn’t have to create a reality. He doesn’t have to worry about having any real characters or human emotion. Much of his cast seems trapped in adolescence–Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Elliot Page–so it’s a smart move. When Gordon-Levitt shows attraction towards Page, it’s like they’re playing dress-up.

Inception, for all its Nolan pretension, is just a blockbuster. Nolan’s gimmick is to make stupid populist entertainment appear smart and thoughtful. Inception excels at it, making me think Nolan knows exactly what to sell to general audiences (like Shyamalan used to).

Technically, Nolan’s direction is solid. Wally Pfister’s lighting occasionally makes it look good quite good (usually outside the dreams–inside it’s too claustrophobic). Hans Zimmer’s score is sublime.

Great performances from Tom Hardy (he’s amazing), Cillian Murphy and Ken Watanabe. DiCaprio effectively imitates Brad Pitt. Gordon-Levitt embarrasses himself. Page is weak. Marion Cotillard is awful. Michael Caine dodders about.

Nolan blended Vanilla Sky and The Matrix, added one pinch each Dreamscape and Memento, then an abbreviated Shyamalan ending. Hurray for him.

The Prestige (2006, Christopher Nolan)

Oh, good grief. The Prestige is in IMDb’s top 250 movies? It’s so bad, I’m actually going to say something nice about Christopher Nolan in a second here. I’ve never heard of source novelist Christopher Priest and no one I know has ever mentioned him to me, so I’m guessing he’s pretty godawful, which probably means the atrocious, idiotic plotting of The Prestige isn’t Nolan’s fault. The terrible writing of the scenes, well, that defect is surely Nolan & Co.’s, since it’s a stable of all his cinematic endeavors, but the asinine, illogical plotting… maybe not his fault.

The best performances in the film are from Rebecca Hall (big shock), David Bowie (ok, a little surprising), Andy Serkis (again, surprising) and Hugh Jackman–well, Hugh Jackman with a caveat. With The Prestige being Nolan and Nolan apparently being the twist ending zeitgeist with M. Night Shyamalan falling on hard times, the twist ending makes it impossible for Jackman, in his role as the protagonist, to actually give a good performance (imagine Jack knowing he was Tyler the whole time), but there’s a little bit where Jackman gets to do this humorous impersonation (with a fake nose) of himself and he’s hilarious. Unfortunately, it doesn’t last long.

Christian Bale’s terrible (he’s not supposed to be a psychopath in every movie, is he?), Scarlett Johansson’s atrocious, Michael Caine’s not as bad as I figured. Johansson’s English accent is occasionally hilarious.

Nolan’s composition isn’t bad but the fragmented narrative is, as always, pinheaded.

0/4ⓏⒺⓇⓄ

CREDITS

Directed by Christopher Nolan; screenplay by Christopher Nolan and Jonathan Nolan, based on the novel by Christopher Priest; director of photography, Wally Pfister; edited by Lee Smith; music by David Julyan; production designer, Nathan Crowley; produced by Christopher Nolan, Emma Thomas and Aaron Ryder; released by Warner Bros. and Touchstone Pictures.

Starring Hugh Jackman (Robert Angier), Christian Bale (Alfred Borden), Michael Caine (Cutter), Scarlett Johansson (Olivia), Piper Perabo (Julia McCullough), Rebecca Hall (Sarah Borden), David Bowie (Tesla) and Andy Serkis (Alley).

RELATED