Director: Christopher Nolan
Year Released: 2010
Rating: 2.0
Leonardo DiCaprio's Mind Prober assembles an army of fellow Dream Warriors - including Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Tom Hardy - to get into the subconscious of a businessman (Cillian Murphy) to get him to change his views towards his father (and affect the future of a mega-company). It's supposed to be a film about 'dreams' but it's never really 'dream-like' - it's an idea movie with a muddled execution and filled with concepts that fail to drive towards any direct point. Say what you want about David Lynch, but he understands the warped logic of dreaming: this is like Flatliners or even (god forbid) eXistenZ, except Nolan is trying so exceptionally hard to make you think he's deep, and apparently many are falling for it (the same thing happened with The Matrix, which was a lot of cobbled philosophy and a lot of action and effects) - some viewers relish the 'ambiguity' of Nolan's approach (with a final shot that may inspire discussion or shrugs), while I think it's just coy trickery. Truly dream-like movies linger in the mind and haunt; this is the product of a technician.
