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Inception is the Hollywood blockbuster implementation of Primer, the Shane Carruth masterpiece whose unconventional, cerebral approach to time travel left our staff scratching our collective head for months. Eventually, BOP’s Dan Krovich created a Primer flowchart that allowed us to understand the moving parts, at least mostly. We once jokingly debated making a How Well Do You Know quiz for Primer wherein the correct answer for each question would be “It depends.” That sort of open-ended ambiguity is borderline unprecedented for films with $100+ million budgets. The reason why is simple. The term popcorn cinema exists for a reason. Most consumers leave their homes and head to the movie theater in order to engage in escapist fantasy for a while. They want to fall in love with the lead actor and they want to experience the fantasy of rescuing someone or being resued while doling out a heapin’ helpin’ of whupass along the way. Inception borders on being a theological exercise. Do you know how many of those have earned $200 million domestically? Exactly. Inception obviously will be the first.

Why do I like Inception on a personal level when Nolan mostly hasn’t been my cup of the tea in the past? A lot of that has to do with the meticulous crafting of this story. As I have said before, Inception is a computer programmer’s movie, a series of nested loops wherein each lower progression requires more work. In this day and age, entertainment rarely offers new ideas such as this one and I firmly believe it will become an imitated format in the future. The careful planning required to layer the car chase on top of the hotel rumble on top of the Halo 3 Snowbound map shootout is ingenious. Nolan is a puppeteer manipulating three puppets simultaneously. Independent of the success or failure of his artistry, I would be impressed by his daring in attempting to pull off such an unprecedented feat. A person must be chock full of self-confidence to endeavor something so ambitious. And I believe that the end result is successful.

Without debating spoilers (some of my friends likely to read this have yet to see the film), I will state that Marion Cotillard offers one of the most nuanced performances in cinematic history. At various moments in the film, she is a femme fatale, a murderous stalker, a romantic lead, Trinity from The Matrix, a tortured What Dreams May Come-r, and a Misery-esque victim. Assuming you are someone who has seen the movie and will watch it again, please take note of this the next time you watch it. Consider what Nolan asks of Cotillard during each of her appearances. Such range is ordinarily reserved for one woman plays, not mega-blockbusters. Similarly, think about what is asked of Tom Hardy throughout the film. He not only plays himself but also other people imbued with vestiges of himself. These are new and different ideas during a movie era where almost every greenlight is a run to the middle, an exercise in cash-grabbing conformity. I mentioned Primer before for a very simple reason. Inception is a low budget arthouse film disguised as a de facto sequel to The Matrix/The Dark Knight.

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