Inception: A Must See!

From the mind of Christopher Nolan, the man who helped make Batman a legitimate film superhero again, Inception was a caper film of a different breed for the objects that Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his crew are usually looking to steal are not diamonds or cash, but thoughts and ideas. But instead of stealing ideas this time around, he is hired by mysterious billionaire Saito (Ken Watanabe) to perform (surprise) inception on a rival businessman Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy). The concept of inception is that Cobb and his crew will go deep into the subconscious of Fischer and plant the idea of breaking up his father’s business, thereby giving Saito the largest energy company in the world. Their task is made all the more dangerous by the constant threat of Cobb’s dead wife Mal (who is now a projection in his mind) plaguing their attempts to complete the task.

Now before I loose you amongst an attempted explanation of the multiple dream layers, host of symbolic visuals that riddled the various conscious and subconscious arenas involved in planting an idea into someone’s mind or even the ending, which could make a person’s head hurt trying to decipher just what was real, the main point you should take away from this review is that Inception was an amazingly complex, audacious, thought-provoking and original film that is leaps and bounds above any and all movies you will rent from Redbox or Netflix for quite some time. It deserves such high praise because it challenged the audience to think and try to comprehend its labyrinthine story, quite a heady thing to ask in this era of Michael Bay-ish one dimensional Hollywood action film story structures. Add to that the dazzling visual brilliance of the picture as well as some career defining performances by the cast and the audience cannot help but be sucked into the multi-layered dream world.

It doesn’t matter how many times you watch Inception, upon each viewing you are bound to catch something different than the last time, perhaps in the way a certain shot was composed or the way a character said a certain bit of dialogue but that’s the beauty of the film. The fact that you can view the same movie over and over and still find new things, still be thoroughly engulfed in the story of a dream within a dream within a dream is incredible

Grade: A

Altitude: Should have kept this one in the hangar!

Sara, an inexperienced pilot, rents a plane to take herself and her friends to a concert. But when they experience mechanical failure, bad weather and an unnatural force, their joyride takes a deadly turn.

Altitude could have been an intense, claustrophobic thriller with a Twilight Zone-ish tinge to its story, instead it turned out to be an exercise of bad directing and even worse acting. First time director Kaare Andrews tried to build tension in the film by slowly turning the screws on the cast and having them face bad break after bad break in their flight. But every time it seemed as though the story would turn the corner and give the audience a reason to gasp in horror or turn their eyes in terror the moment was ruined by the ineptitude of the mostly unknown actors (and after this film, their unknown status should remain that way). The range of emotion from actors such as Jessica Lowndes, Jake Weary, and Julianna Guill consisted of either dumbfounded panic or outright screaming at one another in a truly teenager-like fashion.

Their behavior made them so unlikable, it turned Altitude into one of those films in which you rooted for the monster (yes, there is a monster in the movie) to win and put the audience out of its collective misery.

Grade: D

The Expendables: Clever homage or silly excuse for explosions?

Barney Ross leads a ragtag group of mercenaries called The Expendables that take on assignments most teams would not. Their latest, however, might be their last as they are tasked with overthrowing a tyrannical South American despot with shady ties to a group of Americans.

It is unclear if writer/director Sylvester Stallone intended The Expendables to be a cleverly disguised homage to the kind of action films that made him a megastar in the 1980’s, given the fact that the story was as thin and transparent as the moustache drawn on his face and that there were more explosions in the final fifteen minutes of the movie than a person sees in a typical round of Call of Duty: Black Ops, or if it was a “serious” attempt to create a slick and entertaining action film. However one chooses to interpret it (I prefer the “homage” take personally), The Expendables delivered the goods and provided enough gun/fist fights, explosions, and continual violence to satiate action fans of any and all age. The all star cast surrounding Stallone (including names like Jet Li and Dolph Lundgren) played their parts well but Sly was right to focus parts of the film on his co-star (and seeming replacement as the new action film leading man) Jason Statham. There is only miniscule development in both he and Stallone’s characters, but it is enough to pique the audiences’ curiosity and give their ear drums a rest before the next round of deafening explosions and gun play started. The part that truly helped to make the film watchable were the cameos by two of Stallone’s follow action hero icons, Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger. The verbal jabs that Sly and Arnold exchanged were enough to have most in the audience rolling in the aisles.

This film is destined to become a staple on the cable channel Spike TV because it is the prototypical guy film.

Grade: C