Review for Inception - Triple Play

Introduction

Way back in the mists of time, September 2000 to be precise, I bought my first DVD player. I had already grabbed a couple of promising titles, Blade Runner and The Matrix, and was looking forward to have my universe irrevocably altered by the new way of doing things. Up to that point, I had seen these films time and again, on widescreen VHS, a zoomed in picture with grainy, low resolution. That weekend I learned a new word, anamorphic. I was blown away by digital clarity, high(er) resolution imagery, and surround sound! I thought those two discs were the best representations of the home cinema art I had ever seen, a belief that persisted for months. It was only through experiencing more and more DVDs, broadening my viewing horizons, that I really learned what the DVD format was capable of, and I learned that the first Matrix DVD wasn't all that. I also learned that Blade Runner really sucked on DVD, and I then had to wait interminably long for a decent release. That's the problem with new gadget infatuation, it takes a while to wear off, so that you can see a technology for what it really is.

The whole point of that preamble was to build up to this statement. Inception is my first Blu-ray disc! Do not expect objectivity, in depth technical analysis, or measured comment about the audiovisual attributes of this disc. In fact, unless it really obviously sucks, don't expect a comparative evaluation of my Blu-ray experience for another fifty discs or so. For a good while yet, every new disc will be the best Blu-ray I have ever seen. But Inception is one of the reasons why I finally took the hi-def plunge. I missed it in the cinema, as I do so many films these days, and waited patiently for the DVD release. Except it turns out that the DVD release isn't all that it's cracked up to be. So it was time to let the moths fly free from my wallet, buy the appropriate kit, and finally take a look at the latest film from Hollywood's golden boy director.


Christopher Nolan hit big and hit hard with Memento, but unlike some directors, it was only the spur to bigger and better things. Since then he has been alternating creative and original visions with Hollywood blockbusters, helming the Batman movies while making films like Insomnia and The Prestige. But the lines blur, Insomnia and The Prestige appeal just as much to mass-market audiences while Nolan's take on the Batman mythos is original and thought provoking, in ways that no comic book movies have attempted since the first Superman film. With Inception, blockbuster appeal and creative originality really did collide, and suddenly there was buzz about a film not heard since that first Matrix release. Warner Brothers release Inception in a triple play format, with the Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital Download all in one box.

Cobb is a dream thief. He wasn't always one, but circumstances that he remains reluctant to divulge have torn him from his family, and left him a fugitive from his homeland. The reason why is down to his unique facility with dreams, yet it's his one skill that allows him to earn his illicit living. The military developed technologically and pharmaceutically enhanced shared dreaming as a training tool. By letting their recruits experience live fire combat while asleep, it allows them to face fatal consequences from their actions without there actually being fatal consequences. All that happens is that the dreamer wakes up. As always, such technology can and is perverted. Cobb's job is to insinuate himself into a target's dreams, alter and reshape them in such a way that he can elicit valuable information from them, in essence steal their secrets while they sleep. It's the ultimate in industrial espionage.


His latest job is for a company called Cobol, and his target is a man called Saito. But it isn't a job, it's a job interview. Saito wants Cobb to enter the dreams of Robert Fischer, not to steal an idea, but to plant one, an Inception. Inception is supposed to be impossible, but Cobb believes it can be done, and with Saito promising to clear his name and allow him to be reunited with his family, Cobb certainly has the motivation. He'll need a crack team to help him do it though. It will have to be an intricate insinuation, they'll have to construct a complex layer of dreams to inveigle the mark, and use such sedation that dying in the dream won't just mean waking up, it may mean an eternity in limbo. But Cobb is making one fatal mistake in entering Robert Fischer's dreams; he's taking his own nightmares in with him.

Picture

So what exactly am I looking for here? I can tell you that Inception gets a 2.40:1 widescreen transfer, and that the disc uses the VC-1 codec, which at this point means absolutely nothing to me. I had a look for all those things that bug me about DVD, aliasing, compression artefacts, even pixellation and there wasn't the slightest hint. I thought I had spotted DNR, with plastic looking complexions and an absence of grain, but then realised I still had to read the manual for my TV, and had forgotten to switch some image processing off. That done, and I enjoyed a movie, displayed as it's meant to be seen, a pristine, crystal clear image, with a thin layer of film grain.


I forgot about the nitpicking and marvelled at the imagination in the film, the stunts and the action, the complexity and depth of the imagery, the sublime construction of dream imagery, the practically invisible special effects, and the breathtaking locations. Inception is a film about dreams, but dreams that very much reflect the real world. You can't tell the difference between what is real and what is unreal until something bizarre starts to happen. There's no visual design clue as there was for the Matrix. Everything looks real until suddenly it isn't. That said, the production design in the film is fantastic, the level of detail speaks of rich layers of complexity, and everything is vivid and lush.

Sound

So what exactly am I listening for here? I can tell you that Inception offers you DTS-HD Master Audio English 5.1 as well as Dolby Digital 5.1 Castilian Spanish and an English Audio Descriptive service. I do know the technical difference between lossy and lossless, but living in a Victorian terraced house with thin walls, I have a living room not an auditorium, and the volume is unlikely to go high enough for me to notice any significant difference. That said, I was enveloped by this film, a truly immersive and vibrant experience, the variety in the various dream worlds coming across flawlessly, the dialogue always clear, and the action resplendent but not overwhelming. Subtitles are available in several languages.

Extras

Inception comes in a standard Blu-ray case, with a card slipcover. The two Blu-ray discs are held either side of a hinged central panel, while the DVD is held on the back face.

Two things that I will never use… BD-Live, and a digital copy of a film, especially a digital copy that you have to download, and isn't on one of the discs.

Speaking of discs, check that DVD. If the serial number on the edge of the disc ends SE-SP-08, then you have a dodgy disc. It's edge-enhanced to the point where the Warner Brothers logo looks as if it's built out of Lego, and the film is even worse. If you actually intend to watch the DVD at some point, drop an e-mail to secivreSremotsuCBW[at]moc.rolocinhcet and request a replacement. The replacement DVD's serial number ends in SE-SP-08-V3, and while it isn't the best DVD transfer in the world, it is at least watchable. This problem also afflicted the 2-disc DVD release, and is one reason why I finally made the leap to high definition. All that you get on this disc is the film.


Disc 1

As well as the animated menus and the link to BD-Live, you get Extraction Mode. This is a collection of 14 small featurettes that look at how the film came about, and how certain scenes were accomplished. You have three ways in which to watch this. You can watch the film with the featurettes; when a relevant scene appears, the disc plays the featurette, and then jumps back to the film. You can also watch the featurettes separately, one by one. Or you can do what I did and watch them all using the Play All option, a 44 minute chunk of making of, offering behind the scenes glimpses, and interviews with the cast and crew.

Disc 2

Behind The Story contains two significant featurettes. Dreams: Cinema of the Subconscious lasts 45 minutes, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt introduces a very interesting documentary on the nature of dreams and dreaming, with a lot of input from experts, some people describing their own dreams, as well as some of Inception's cast and crew. You'll also find Inception: The Cobol Job here, a 14 minute animated comic prequel to the film, that shows what happened when Cobol hired Cobb to perform the extraction on Saito.


The 5.1 Inception Soundtrack presents Hans Zimmer's score in DTS-HD Master Audio. There are 10 tracks, running to a total of 39 minutes, presented against a black backdrop, but heralded with a title caption. You can play the tracks individually, or all in one go as an album.

In the Extras section, you'll find a Conceptual Art Gallery with 32 images, and a Promotional Art Archive with 11 poster designs. The images take up too small a fraction of the available screen space.

Finally there are Trailers and TV Spots, 3 trailers and 13 TV Spots in total.

Conclusion

Outstanding audiovisual reproduction doesn't mean a whole lot if what you're reproducing isn't up to snuff. Fortunately, Inception is a peach of a film, a thought provoking, smart, summer action flick, with a whole lot more to it than just bright lights and big bangs. It's got a thrilling story, great characters, tons and tons of imagination, and is about as satisfying a Hollywood summer movie as I have seen in years. Once again, Christopher Nolan delivers a stunning experience, and once again he gives the impression that he is a director that can do no wrong.


It's not exactly the most original of subject matter. As is mentioned in the extras, cinema has always been about bringing dreams to life, about exploring ideas, and visions and realities that don't conform to the world we know. The idea of twisting the reality that a character inhabits, playing with it and with audience perceptions is as old as cinema itself. I have to admit that I did have reservations about Inception, with a perceived similarity to a favourite anime of mine, Paprika, in which a protagonist helps people by sharing their dreams and working with them to deal with unresolved issues. But other than similarities in instrumentality, the two films are really dissimilar. In fact I found Inception to be far more similar to Strange Days, in that they both feature mind-accessing technology that is developed for one purpose, and is illicitly perverted for something totally different. Strange Days used its tech to play with the conscious mind, while Inception plays with the subconscious. Of course there is a history of cinema that plays with perceptions, and with distorted and layered realities, whether it is The Matrix, or Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, or Being John Malkovich.

What Inception does is use that concept with Christopher Nolan's trademark storytelling style, with fractured narrative, with layered and intertwined stories, and in this case, layered and intertwined realities or dreams. The dream within a dream is almost a cliché in fiction, but the way that it works in this film makes it feel fresh and original. Inception is an ingeniously constructed film that demands your complete attention. Usually it is the cerebral films that demand such scrutiny, the films that play to limited audiences, but Inception is a summer blockbuster with mass audience appeal. It's not every film that can hold a diverse audience with such intensity. It's because it plays on your mind and challenges the intellect while feeding the need for cool explosions, stunts and special effects. The way that the various dream worlds are realised is stunning, with a deft combination of in camera work and CGI. Normally egregious CGI sticks out like a sore thumb, regardless of how seamlessly it is accomplished, simply because we know the difference between unreality and reality. No one expects a tyrannosaurus to be real. But by establishing a story about dreams, Inception does away with that impediment to suspending disbelief. So when the Paris streets start folding in on themselves, you're left open mouthed at the spectacle, forgetting about how the effects are accomplished.


In structure, Inception is a heist/con movie like any other, with the difference that they are planting something, not stealing something. The leader of the gang, the master criminal is approached with a job that is reputed to be impossible, challenging his professional pride, and he is also offered a prize that makes it worthwhile. With that setting the story in motion, he gathers his crew, a group of talented individuals that will probably rub each other the wrong way, but when the time comes will fit together like clockwork, there will be one maverick, one seasoned professional, and one rookie at least. It sounds like I'm describing the plot to Ocean's Eleven, but it applies just as well to Inception, although with the stakes that Cobb is playing for, it's understandable that there is a more serious tone to the film, although it's not without its moments of comedy. Arthur is the seasoned professional, an impressive performance from Joseph Gordon-Levitt, while Tom Hardy shines as the maverick Eames. Ariadne is the rookie, and as is the way for such movies, she develops the closest relationship with Cobb, able to challenge and his motivations and decisions where those who know him better fail to do so.

It is a classic heist movie structure, which is the source of the only, small disappointment for me. In the end, the heist, the Inception in Robert Fischer's mind is really just a Maguffin to motivate Cobb's more personal story. That's the whole point of the movie of course, and it doesn't make any illusions otherwise. It's just that in the end, the heist aspect loses significance. We get the build up from Saito about how essential it is, we spend plenty of time preparing for the Inception, and naturally the film's high point is the actual Inception itself. I felt a little cheated though that we didn't get to see the consequences of it play out to any degree. I would have settled for a 'reflective pause at the fountain' moment from Ocean's Eleven. It isn't important given the broad direction of the story, but the nitpicking perfectionist in me was a little let down regardless. It is a small nit to pick, as Inception is a brilliant film that makes me glad that I'm feeling Blu.