I haven’t necessarily loved all of Rian Johnson’s movies, but I have always thought that he was an immensely talented filmmaker. His debut, with the modern noir Brick, was a treat across the board and instantly brought him widespread acclaim. Though his sophomore effort, The Brothers Bloom, failed to capture me with the story and casting, I did find the style and creativity of the movie to be masterful. It is should be no surprise, then, that his time travel thriller Looper would be high on the list of films I was eager about this year.

Set in 2042, the story follows Joe (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), a hitman for the mob, known as a “looper.” Unlike in our regular idea of a hitman, he kills marks from the future (specifically, 2072). Unfortunately, unbeknownst to him, the mob decides to “close his loop” and have him eliminate his future self (Bruce Willis) to eliminate any record of their association with him.

So far this year time travel has gotten off to a good start, with one of my favorite movies thus far being the indie hit Safety Not Guaranteed. While both films feature the topic, they approach it from completely different angles. Safety Not Guaranteed questioned whether time travel was possible, while Looper concedes that point from the beginning and instead focuses on the ramifications of a world where time travel exists. But both films use the subject as a backdrop for the bigger story, so the topic of time travel is mostly a means to an end.

Despite having gathered a lot of attention for his previous work, I feel like Rian Johnson appears to be on the cusp of breaking out in the mainstream. In Looper, he has done a fantastic job of crafting a dystopian future where the mob runs things…sort of like a mix between 12 Monkeys and Mad Max. His ability to deftly shift between genres for his films is among the elite, in company with people such as Gore Verbinski and Steven Spielberg. For his first true action film, he shows no signs of inexperience, and he raises it beyond just run-of-the-mill action with a complex and engaging plot. It helps that he has his muse Joseph Gordon-Levitt along for the ride to keep a solid baseline for consistency from his past work.

It is amazing to think that Joseph Gordon-Levitt is only 31 years old. It feels like he has been around forever. Since 2005, his filmography has some of the most noteworthy performances for any actor—and yet he has never been nominated for an Academy Award or won any awards of major significance. It is unlikely that he will get nominated for his work here, but he continues to impress. He not only takes on the challenge of Rian Johnson’s curious story, but he also does an amazing job of channeling a younger Bruce Willis. Gordon-Levitt is the heart and soul of the movie, and shows why he has the unique ability to be both a dramatic powerhouse and an action star.

As outstanding as Gordon-Levitt is, he is not alone in creating the compelling world of Looper. Bruce Willis has one of his most meaningful performances since possibly Lucky Number Slevin in 2007, as he plays a broke man set on a mission. In the extended cast, Emily Blunt and Paul Dano continue to impress me with their performances, and do a great job as instigators in driving the plot forward. Finally, continuing his recent renaissance, Jeff Daniels is unnerving as the mob leader in 2042 who is able to control people without even needing to resort to violence.

Still, for the first time since The Dark Knight Rises I found myself feeling the length of a movie. That isn’t to say Looper’s run time even approaches that of The Dark Knight Rises, but the story is so full of twists and turns that I wasn’t sure how long it was going to take to resolve everything. Ultimately it comes together in a nice package, but the pace of the journey was a bit erratic at times. Additionally, one of the main points during production was the prosthetics worn by Joseph Gordon-Levitt to look more like Bruce Willis. Frankly, not only did I feel they were unnecessary, but it was kind of distracting at times. I would’ve been totally cool if they had just skipped doing it and I don’t think it would’ve hurt my feelings toward the film.

It is challenging to discuss a film that you want to avoid spoiling; this is one of those movies it is a treat to be surprised by. While it isn’t quite as philosophical as films like The Matrix and Inception, I still feel that it could potentially create a lot of discussion about what occurs. This is one film that can’t simply be summarized in 800 words.

Final Grade: A-

Extracted (2012) is a slick, well-made independent sci-fi film that works well in some ways and not so well in others. The beautiful thing about the sci-fi genre is that it allows filmmakers to open their creative reservoirs and build new worlds and explore a vast array of possibilities. You can do just about anything you want if you make a sci-fi movie—which had me wondering: if the genre allows for anything to happen, why do filmmakers so often delve into the same kind of material that has been done before? Perhaps it’s more of an insurance thing—whatever has worked once will most likely work again. This is what we are faced with in writer/director Nir Paniry’s film. There is no doubt that there is promising talent at play with this project, but at the same time, the film doesn’t give us anything beyond what we’ve already seen.

The story revolves around two characters. The first is a scientist named Tom (Sasha Roiz). Tom has made an astonishing breakthrough and has created a machine that can have people implant their own subconscious into the memories of other people. They can see and experience what other people have lived through. At first, Tom develops this technology in the hopes of making progress in the health care world, but government officials, after gaining word of Tom’s abilities, decide to offer him money to switch the purpose to their own needs. This involves entering the minds of criminals. Enter main character number two, Anthony (Dominic Bogart). Anthony is a convict in jail for a brutal murder, and authorities hope that Tom’s machine can peer into Anthony’s memories and finally prove once and for all that he was the culprit.

Playing with memory and reality is a tried and true element in the sci-fi world, and while I was watching this movie, I started to name off all the other films that this one resembles. The list includes titles such as The Matrix (1999), The Cell (2000), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), and Inception (2010). The ingredients are all there, including the fancy gizmos that connect all around a subject’s head, the jumping around and flashing of different moments in time, and, of course, the usual questions involving whether or not what we’re seeing is in fact real or imaginary. Which makes it unsurprising that, after an accident occurs during the procedure, Tom finds himself trapped inside of the mind of Anthony, reliving his memories over and over again. That must be a terrible position to be stuck in. Not only is Tom unable to escape the world of memories, the memories he has to go through aren’t even his own—and even worse than that, they’re the memories of a drug user and convicted murderer! That’s like having to watch the same depressing movie again and again and again, without ever having the ability to change the channel.

As one of the main leads, Dominic Bogart has the more interesting role, and fills it with a very fine performance. He plays panicked, scared, and desperate to full effect here. Anthony, while being in jail for murder, is convinced that he didn’t do it, and does whatever he can to fix the details of the crime in his head and prove his innocence. Sure, he has done bad things, but believes that he isn’t the kind of person who could commit such a terrible act. Sasha Roiz, unfortunately, has the more thankless acting job. Tom, compared to Anthony, is a fairly flat character. Not to say that Roiz’s performance is bad, but there is simply not enough meat there to garner much interest. He is a straight arrow compared to the unpredictability of the loose cannon Anthony. Tom only goes along with the experiment due to his financial need to support his family, but because of that he pretty much digs his own grave. He jumps headfirst into his work without analyzing the potential risks, even to the point of accepting monetary backing without knowing who the sponsor is, which makes me think that he isn’t as smart as the film tries to portray him to be.

I realize that in this genre, there’s a level of acceptance one needs to have. Knowing that what is happening on screen is impossible, we have to lift our disbelief and go along with what the story is giving us. However, I don’t believe the film gives us enough foundation to firmly stand on and run with. I found myself with too many questions as to how the logic of the world works. How exactly is Tom stuck in the mind of Anthony, and why is it that he can’t return to his own body when they break the connection? Is Tom’s subconscious somehow separate from himself? If Tom is now a “part” of Anthony’s head, then how can he still communicate with the computer, Minnie (Sara Tomko), and travel to any part of Anthony’s memories as if he still had a level of control? At one point, I started chuckling when Anthony started speaking with Tom in his head, looking a bit silly as if he were talking to himself. The script tries to explain all this with the mention of injected computer chips and such, but it felt clunky and overburdened with scientific mumbo jumbo, which I did not entirely buy in to, no matter how hard I tried.

Perhaps Extracted would have been a better movie if it had focused a little more on equal character development and a little less on the sci-fi elements. The best parts of the film are when we learn about Anthony and his upbringing, especially his relationship with his father. If we had seen more of Tom’s background, and if there was a deeper urgency for him to go ahead with his experiment, then maybe I would have been more invested in him trying to escape his predicament. Tom’s relationship with his wife Abbey (Jenny Mollen) gets pushed to the wayside, a definite missed opportunity for better insight into their lives. When the film delves into the special effects, the jumping around in time, and the manipulation of memory and reality, it starts to falter. It goes for a scene or two too long, and settles for a cheap plot twist and an unnecessarily ambiguous ending. Sure, the movie definitely looks good, and is fairly efficient as a low budget thriller, but I wanted this movie to push further than what it ended up being, if only because I can see the potential it had to get there.

Final Grade: B-

In honor of Goon, Spencer and Greg look back on Seann William Scott’s career. Then they explore the phenomenon of “movie clusters” and give DVD picks.

For his DVD pick, Spencer selected the limited edition 70th anniversary release of Casablanca. Greg went for Mystery Science Theater 3000: Volume XXIII, the latest release of the classic comedy series.

This episode is available on iTunes, Stitcher, Blip.TV and Miro. Additionally, you can find our podcast RSS feeds on our subscribe page and use whatever system you want.

You can follow all of the happenings on our website through our blog’s RSS feed.

It is not often that you are lucky enough to see when filmmakers really hit their stride. In my opinion, the Duplass brothers have done just that with their latest film, Jeff, Who Lives at Home. I have enjoyed their previous films, but everything finally comes together for me here.

The film follows title character Jeff (played by Jason Segel), who is in search of his purpose in life. His relationships with his mom (played by Susan Sarandon) and brother (played by Ed Helms) are strained, as neither of them can understand how he drifts through life. At the same time, they find themselves at crossroads in their lives. After Jeff receives a phone call from a wrong number from someone looking for “Kevin,” it sets off a domino chain of events that lead them all on personal journeys as their lives are turned upside down.

The tone of the movie is set from the opening scene, as Segel’s character gives a monologue about his love of the movie Signs, and how despite the movie seeming like a random series of events, it ultimately comes together beautifully in the end. This scene provides an excellent introduction to the character, as well as establishing a language to understand the movie as it goes forward. Everything in the movie has a purpose, and it probably will take multiple views to really appreciate all the nuance that is going on.

The Duplass brothers continue growing as filmmakers. Starting out as indie darlings, this is their second major Hollywood production (following 2010′s Cyrus), and it shows an immense amount of growth. They have moved from casting their friends in their movies to casting Hollywood stars, but their ability to not be lost in the pressure to cast “names” is one of the greatest successes of the movie. Sure, Segel, Helms, and Sarandon are famous and will sell some tickets, but the important thing is that their chemistry together is spectacular and they genuinely feel like a family.

The film is a beautiful meditation on faith—not in a religious sense, but in oneself. Jeff believes he has a purpose in his life and is essentially willing to do anything to find it, even if it is at his own expense: physically, mentally, and emotionally. The film does a great job of speaking to both topics of immediate importance as well as the big picture. And while it might not be as big or as deep as films such as The Matrix or Inception, it still makes me want to talk about it in that way.

The film presents a recurrence of one of the frequently recurring themes in the Duplass brothers’ past work: a dysfunctional family. The thing about their work in Jeff, Who Lives at Home and their other works is that they treat everyone like a human, and there are no caricatures. Characters might be flawed, but everyone has their motivations and they do a good job—it would’ve been really easy to make characters in this movie the “bad guy,” but the flaws make the characters feel human, and the viewer can feel empathetic.

It is a lot of fun to see Segel and Helms getting to exercise their dramatic muscles; both of them are excellent actors who so frequently are associated with their comedic work that this is sometimes forgotten. While there are funny moments in the movie, the heart is what leaves the most lasting impression. It is really moving to see their characters finally come to understand and appreciate each other, moving on from just dealing with each other because they are related. It is also nice to see Sarandon get another role with some meat on it; it has been a while and she clearly still has talent.

Even more so than the topline talent, the Duplass brothers have done an excellent job of casting their supporting actors, choosing veterans such as Judy Greer and forgotten stars such as Rae Dawn Chong. Their screen time might be short, but their contributions are immense. I wouldn’t go so far as to compare the Duplass brothers to Quentin Tarantino in their ability to think outside the box for actors, but they have done a good job in not getting bogged down in casting stars. Also, while they might be growing their talent pool, frequent Duplass actor Steve Zissis makes an appearance in a smaller role, but an equally important one.

To me, the first thing I look for in a movie is entrainment value. If it makes me want to talk about themes, ideas, or story, that is just gravy. Jeff, Who Lives at Home is one of the rare films that makes me want to talk about all of those elements. To me, that is a huge success. I’m sure not everyone will love it, but I think it is worth watching—at the very least, we should try to make more movies like this.

Final Grade: A

In honor of The Lorax, Spencer and Greg discuss children’s books turned into films. Then they look at characters in over their heads, before giving DVD picks.

For his DVD pick, Spencer selected the multi-Academy Award winner Hugo. Greg went for latest animated film from DC, Justice League: Doom.

This episode is available on iTunes, Stitcher, Blip.TV and Miro. Additionally, you can find our podcast RSS feeds on our subscribe page and use whatever system you want.

You can follow all of the happenings on our website through our blog’s RSS feed.

The annual festival of Hollywood-types congratulating each other for their ability to play make-believe really well while flaunting a garish display of uniquely American excess is rapidly approaching. Of course I’m talking about the annual Academy Awards. As a concept, and looking at the amount of import it is often met with, the entire affair can be seen as somewhat ludicrous. Wealthy people handing out statues while displaying millions of dollars in gowns, tuxedos, and jewelry can be seen as paling in comparison to really important things. Teachers, firefighters, doctors, nurses, social workers, Peace Corps volunteers, parents, and thousands of others toil away in professions that, it can be argued, deserve much more praise. They do REALLY impactful work for far less/no money with often little thanks. So yes, the Oscars can be seen as yet another example of our out of whack priorities. Much like the carnival that surrounds sports figures or models or reality TV stars or musicians, the Oscars elevate a group that already gets plenty of rewards for their toils.

Despite all of that, I love them anyway.

First off, as a Film Geek, this is my Superbowl. There’s not a lot I pay attention to in sports. Yeah, I know New York won the Superbowl and it was close. Yeah, Boston finally won the World Series a few years back, reversing the curse of the Bambino. And soccer/futbol is so popular worldwide it causes deadly riots. I’m peripherally aware of all this, but movies are where I geek out. So, seeing the biggest deal awards-wise in movies is just plain fun. I don’t end up caring too much about the dresses or who brought whom as a date. But I do actually pay attention when the obscure French film student wins for Best Documentary Short Subject and gives an impassioned speech about the medium itself. That’s fun.

The issue we all end up with when assessing Oscar’s choices is what is judged to be “Great.” It’s assumed that if a film wins Best Picture that it’s important or its artistic merits are worthy. But the process behind those choices is often so skewed by the aging, Caucasian, male Academy that it doesn’t always equate that the Best Picture winner is the actual best picture of that year. There’s been a lot of debate on this very site discussing what should have won when. The media is full of prognosticators who will be guessing whether The Artist will truly bring home the prize or if Hugo will stage an upset or who will win the race between Meryl Streep and Viola Davis.

However, this year I’ve sensed a distinct lack of enthusiasm from a lot of people regarding the year’s choices. 2011 seemed to be a year with a lot of good, solid films. But it seemed short of great ones. I think I personally found more to like in 2011 than I did in 2010. But even so, the frustrating thing with Oscars is the amount of prestige they bestow on a film for all time. The Best Picture winner will be at least mentioned for a long time to come, whether it is worthy or not. Oscar often gets it wrong. But when they get it right, they can get it so right.

The greatest example of this memorializing a film for all time is 1942′s Best Picture winner, Casablanca. No one, but no one, can argue its place in the pantheon of great films. It boasted one of the best, most oft-quoted scripts of all time. When going through the mental clip show that everyone can run in their heads right now of all films, Rick and Ilsa at the airport works its way in. “As Time Goes By” is among the most memorable of all film songs. Bogart in his white suit crying into his tightly gripped scotch at the bar; Claude Rains in his French military uniform; Ingrid Bergman in soft focus. It may or may not be your favorite movie ever, but it’s easily earned its place in the pride of Oscar’s selections.

There have definitely been other quite inarguable winners as well. The Godfather, All Quiet on The Western Front, Lawrence of Arabia, Amadeus, Schindler’s List: the list could go on for a while, but the point is that when Oscar gets it right, it gets it so right. There are timeless movies that deserve the accolades they receive.

(Cont).

Spencer is joined by guest host Laremy of Film.com for an in depth discuss of Inception, with the first half being an overview that is spoiler free and the second half where they gets down to the details that include spoilers, and finally the episode closes with its own twist – the anti-dvd picks of week.

For his DVD to avoid this week, Laremy selected the misstep by Kevin Smith, Cop Out (DVD/Blu-ray). Continuing on the sentiment, Spencer strongly suggested avoiding the terrible comic adaption, The Losers (DVD/Blu-ray).

This episode is available on iTunes and Zune. Additionally, we have a RSS feed and it is available on Miro.

Just like everyone else in the world, I just got done watching Inception and loved it. So far it’s my favorite movie of the year. My Tweet sized review of it is: Imagine if The Matrix starred someone who could act.

I know I am being glib and reductive, but the film is terrific (that sequence with Joseph Gordon Levitt in the hallway is a stunner). I don’t want to spoil anything for anyone, and the WorldWide Interwebs will be abuzz with analysis of the film for a while. So I won’t bother to review it here.

However, I would like to make a case for what I feel has turned into one of Christopher Nolan’s visual signatures. Some of the great directors have a certain stylistic move that they repeatedly use. It’s like a cue or flair to let us know that we are in their world.

One of the greatest and most noticeable examples of this is Scorsese’s use of the Steadicam shot. Think of the famous single shot following Ray Liotta into the nightclub in Goodfellas. Or the shot of Harvey Keitel floating through a nightspot in Mean Streets. Or the opening shot in Gangs of New York.

John Woo has his doves. Steven Spielberg has a small figure in the foreground being overshadowed by a gigantic figure in the background (Indian Jones and the boulder, a character almost run over by a tank in Saving Private Ryan, Elliot flying in front of the moon in E.T., Hayley Joel Osment and the teddy bear in front of the moon in A.I., Sam Neil facing off with the T-Rex in Jurassic Park, and there are more). Robert Altman has his busy crowd scenes with overlapping dialogue.

There are a ton more examples of this, but the point is that there are cues that are oftentimes overt that these filmmakers use to make their experience unique. While watching Inception, I’m starting to think that Christopher Nolan’s signature is a large field of individual light sources. In this movie, it comes up right at the beginning. In that room with the dining table that Leonardo Dicaprio and Ken Watanabe are having a conference, the room is illuminated by hundreds of individual chandalier lights. Very visually arresting.

There are similar light in his other films. Batman Begins has the temple training room with hundreds of candles. The Prestige has rooms with lots of very lonely hanging light bulbs. Insomnia has the blares of light coming through the windows in Al Pacino’s room which reflect his increased sleeplessness. I would argue that in The Dark Knight, the scene with all of the images from the individual cellphone cameras would qualify.

Why is this important? It seems that a trademark look like this may thrust Nolan into the realm of Auteur. That is a happy surprise. While watching a thought provoking big budget action film, we may have stumbled upon a major Director as well.

My mind has just been blown.

Inception (2010), the latest film from writer-director Christopher Nolan, is a mind-boggling exercise of epic proportions.  Not since David Lynch’s Mulholland Dr. (2001) has a film left me so utterly speechless; I do not even know where to begin with this review.  The film is a combination of all the best parts of The Matrix (1999), Memento (2000), Dark City (1998), and the television show Lost, put together in one spectacular whole.  This is a film that will remain with you for days, trying to put all the pieces together.  Even now, hours after watching the film, my mind is still racing, wanting to learn more. It is a film that must be seen to be believed.

***WARNING: MINOR SPOILERS BELOW***

The movie stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Cobb, an expert thief (the same name as the thief in Nolan’s first film, Following (1998)).  However, it is not jewelry or money that he is good at stealing, but ideas.  He is a thief of the mind: Cobb has the ability to enter the dreams of others, and expose their most hidden secrets, the most buried ideas that one does not want anyone else to know; this is called “extraction.”  Like an expert craftsman, Cobb can enter the world of the dreamer, navigate the perimeter, take down obstacles, and crack the safe with the slightest effort.  This, of course, makes him a hot commodity for those trying to learn the private aspects of other people.

Things get interesting when Cobb is hired by a former target in Saito (Ken Watanabe), the head of an energy corporation desperate to take down their main competition in Robert Fischer Jr. (Cillian Murphy).  To do this, Cobb must do the reverse of his expertise, and instead of taking an idea out of his target’s mind, he must place an idea in it: the idea for Fischer to take apart his business, which was built by the hands of his estranged father.  This type of mental manipulation is called “inception.”  If Cobb accomplishes this, he will be reunited with his children, taken from him by circumstances that I will not get in to here.

Cobb assembles a team of experts all specializing in the set up of this daring reverse-heist.  Newcomer Ariadne (Ellen Page) will lay the groundwork, the literal world that the action will take place.  Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) will be the number two on the team, Eames (Tom Hardy) will be the undercover man, while Saito and Yusuf (Dileep Rao) provide back up.  I was reminded of heist movies ranging from Bob le flambeur (1956) to Ocean’s 11 (2001) in the way the crew members prepared diagrams, plotted out the action, and designated the escape routes, all in anticipation for what will happen.  The only difference with Inception is that it will all happen in the mind instead of the bank vault.

Now pay attention closely, the next part may get a little confusing.

To avoid any risk of being detected by the dreamer, the team decides to put the target in to a multilayered dream: a dream within a dream…within a dream.  This will take us from the streets of an urban city to the heights of a snow-capped mountain.  By doing this, the ability to con the target in to opening his mind will become easier, but for the team, it’ll make things riskier, for they have the chance of getting lost in one of the dreams, believing it to be reality, and never waking up.  Things get even worse when they realize that the target has subconsciously prepared defense mechanisms, in the form of mercenaries and armed soldiers, to stop and kill them from entering the deep realms of his mind.  At the same time, one of the crewmembers holds a secret of their own; a dark memory that has the potential to not just ruin the plan, but also risk the real-lives of everyone involved.

Now, what I have just described to you is nowhere near what the experience of this film is; the movie is a completely original mind-trip.  Christopher Nolan has crafted a story that not only bends a character’s thoughts, but also plays with time, space, and visuals; everything we see on screen is subject to manipulation.  For example, time itself is portrayed as an element that can be twisted and shaped.  A character explains that in the dream world, time is stretched: what takes 5 minutes in the real world can last days in the dream.  Therefore, if the thieves are in a dream of a dream, they can stretch time longer, giving themselves more room to implant their idea in to the target.  In fact, all the action that takes place near the climax of the film lasts only seconds in the first dream state.  Confused?  Don’t worry, I was too, but this playing with literal conventions opens up the film to new possibilities, Nolan has certainly created something here that is entirely unique.

On a purely visual level, Inception is quite the achievement.  This is the first time where we have seen Nolan adopt a wider range of computer generated effects, and he amps up the use of it to the maximum.  We see buildings rise and fall, the contours of a landscape change before our very eyes, stairs and walls appear from out of nowhere, we move between levels like an elevator moving between different floors.  When a person is about to wake up, we see their dream world crumble all around them like a house of cards.  One moment, we are racing through a crowded city street, and then in the very next, a train flies by, smashing through all of the cars.  At one point in the movie, a character literally folds the world they are in upon itself, the sky becomes the street, the street becomes the sky, and so forth.  This is epic and thrilling movie-making.  What happens in one dream will effect the environment of another.  In one of the best sequences of the film, a character that is asleep is flipped and rotated in to the air, and as a result, his dream self is flung around the very room he is in, while at the same time battling an enemy.  This is one of the most creative action scenes I have ever seen; they fight on the ceiling, on the floor, on the wall and in mid air, sometimes all within the same shot! I sat wide-eyed during this portion, dazed and confused at how Christopher Nolan could pull off such an amazing sequence.

The best aspect of the film, and probably the most mind numbing, is trying to put all of the narrative threads together in to one cohesive piece.  If this character is shot in the 3^rd dream level, how will that affect his character in the 2^nd?  If dreams are fragments of memories, then how do we know if a character is an actual team member or a figment of one’s own history?  If they are all working in the same dream, then who’s dream is it, and how do they wake themselves up?  And if they do wake up, how do they know that they’re actually awake, or still sleeping?  There are so many questions that I had, I felt I needed a piece of paper to write down and make sure I was following every single detail correctly.  The confusing aspects of the film is not a bad thing; in fact it’s one of the things that I admire most.  There are so many tiny details that Nolan puts in, that I wanted to point out plot holes, but I don’t know if there are any.  It’s like putting five different jigsaw puzzles together at the same time.

There are a few things that I am sure of.  First, the acting here is great all around.  DiCaprio plays Cobb with the same intense obsession that has plagued many of the characters in Nolan’s films, desperate to finish the job and return to those he loves.  Marion Cotillard plays Cobb’s wife in beautiful and idyllic fashion.  She is the emotional thread that binds the film together; Nolan shoots her in a way that makes it believable that one would go to the depths of madness to be with her.  The side characters (Gordon-Levitt, Watanabe and Hardy) bring shape and humor to their roles, despite being slightly one-dimensional.  Even Ellen Page, whom I’ve never been a real big fan of, pulls off her role of the naïve architect convincingly; she is the stable counterpoint to the growing chaos around the team.  One of the many surprises comes from Cillian Murphy, the target.  Nolan does a great job giving this character depth and sympathy.  Although our heroes are manipulating him, we can’t help but feel for this man and the broken relationship he has with his father, peaking at a crucial scene by his father’s bed.

Another detail that I am sure of is that this is a great action movie.  Nolan takes the real-life intensity that he had with The Dark Knight (2008), and fleshes it again here.  The chase scene in the city is reminiscent of the Joker/Batman chase scene, and the shoot out at the snowy mountain echoes Bruce Wayne’s escape of Ra’s Al Ghul’s lair in Batman Begins (2005).  Although these scenes may seem similar, Nolan puts them together effectively.  He may be using more CGI in this film, but those are real cars being chased and shot at, those are real explosions happening around the team, there are real stakes at hand.  We as the audience care about what is happening because Nolan makes us care, we understand what is at risk and what would happen if the team fails.  This is a detail so often glazed over in lesser action movies.  And even more amazingly, is that all of these action scenes are happening at the exact same time.

I have read that Christopher Nolan spent nearly ten years writing this film, and I can believe that.  He must have racked his mind trying to make sure everything works as they appear to, that the levels flowed together and made sense, and that the audience would be able to follow along without completely losing their way.  No review can fully encapsulate what kind of an experience a person will have watching this movie.  This is a film unlike anything I have ever seen, a first-class entry to a summer season of lackluster movies.  I highly recommend you see this as soon as you can; go in to it with an open mind, and be ready for the rollercoaster ride that follows.  In the end, you will have experienced a labyrinth of a story, and one of the best movies of 2010.