How to Watch: “Inception”

Step 1: Get your serious brain-wrapping skills ready. It’s a little difficult to fully understand Inception — but you won’t have any trouble being wowed by the certain to-be-Oscar-nominated visuals.

Step 2: Don’t try and dissect the film’s plot too much. It would ruin it for those who should experience Inception with a clean slate, but I’ll just give you the basics. Leonardo DiCaprio plays an entrepreneur named Cobb who operates a small band of consultants, who, for a price, can go into other people’s dreams and “extract” information. There’s the architect (Ellen Page), the forger (Tom Hardy), the kicker (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) and the chemist (Dileep Rao) — all trained to do their jobs well. It’s never quite explained how they are trained (except for newbie Page), but we just assume it’s something they can do. The inception part in Inception is a little trickier, and frankly, more confusing, to explain. Suffice to say, it’s a technique to go deep within the subconscious to plant an idea. To get that deep, however, you’ve gotta be super prepared because you’re going to be knee-deep in some pretty crazy maze-like, dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream shit — and it isn’t very easy to get out.

Step 3: Marvel that man. Oh, how I love the way writer/director Christopher Nolan brain works. Most audiences know him as the Dark Knight guy, and while I appreciated his take on the Batman series, I remember him for his entirely unique Memento, his mind-twisty brainchild he made in 2000. Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie quite like Memento, in which the story is basically told backwards, from ending to beginning, and Inception comes from THAT Nolan mind set. Except this time, the director has learned a few things about crafting a thrilling actioner as well, and so combines both the head games AND the car chases. I mean, there are some seriously intense action scenes in this film, especially the climactic “kick” sequence.

Step 4: Learn to adapt. The Inception performers also fit well within the Nolan milieu. The oh-so-serious DiCaprio is playing a variation of his character in Shutter Island, with the same tragic past. Page continues her streak of picking unique projects, as the studious and eager dream architect trainee. Gordon-Levitt cleans up well, looking dapper as DiCaprio’s No. 2 guy — and he gets to engage in the coolest fight sequence, like, ever. British actor Hardy (RocknRolla) is a refreshing diamond in the rough as the charismatic forger. As for the other key players, Ken Watanabe exudes a regal air as Cobb’s employer; Cillian Murphy plays it straight as the “mark”; and the lovely Marion Cotillard embodies the women who quite literally haunts Cobb’s dreams. A few may see Oscar nominations down the road.

Step 5: Win Oscars! Obviously, when you’re dealing with a film about dreams, anything can and will happen, and Nolan fully embraces that idea with stunning camera angles and special effects. Inception will be viewed as an early Oscar contender, that is a certainty — and at the very least, it should sweep many of the technical nominations come Oscar time, from visual to sound to cinematography.  If there’s only one criticism about Inception, it would be how bleak and nearly soulless it can be at times. You are drawn in by the characters, yet it’s hard to feel for them. I firmly believe that is Nolan’s intentions. He’s not out to make a warm and fuzzy film, and I respect that because the rest of the film is simply a marvel in inventiveness.

Level of difficulty in watching Inception: Refer to my opening line. And the ending will leave you debating in that glass half full, half empty kind of way. Let’s just say, it’s a movie that needs to be seen more than once.