Stitch on 26/7/2010 at 15:05
:cool:
Quote Posted by Scots Taffer
Well, Inception is great and all, but as an overall movie Toy Story 3 definitely dethroned it for best of the year so far.
The fact that I don't see a lot of movies undercuts my ability to rank this year's releases with anything resembling authority, but I'd agree that
Toy Story 3 is so far the standout. The other two non-
Inception movies I've seen are
Avatar and
Kick Ass, both of which I'd say easily best
Inception in sheer entertainment value, and yet I have to give
Inception a certain amount of props for what it attempts. I didn't love it--or even really like it, for that matter--but I do applaud its ambition and scope, and I'd love to see more movies like it.
Preferably with a less cluttered plot that leaves more room for a character-driven narrative, of course.
Sulphur on 26/7/2010 at 16:39
Yeah, Toy Story 3 nearly made me shed a tear, but at the end of day it still gets filed below Finding Nemo and Spirited Away for examples of animated films that are at the top of their craft, original, and have beautifully told narratives.
Off to watch The Prestige now, suckahs. :cool:
Matthew on 26/7/2010 at 17:06
My workmate saw this at the weekend and has classed it as 'a great movie which unfortunately knows that it is and is a bit smug as a result'. Accurate?
SubJeff on 26/7/2010 at 17:58
I didn't think so.
As to Stitch's dis; I don't think the film needs or wants a great deal of emotional draw. The emotional pull is only there as a macguffin and as such does fine. But then I am a bit of a robot so the PKDeskness of it was what appealed to me.
The Alchemist on 27/7/2010 at 05:21
Quote Posted by Scots Taffer
Well, Inception is great and all, but as an overall movie Toy Story 3 definitely dethroned it for best of the year so far.
It's funny, when I said Inception is the best movie I'd seen in cinemas since The Dark Knight and all year, that really isn't saying much because the movie landscape has been pretty barren for some time and I'd been out to see maybe a grand total of five movies this year (until recently). My view is somewhere between the disappointment of lost opportunity that registers for Angel Dust and Stitch and the gleeful giddiness of Alchemist and others at the construction of the puzzle and what the overall conclusion is.
The one thing that definitely clicked with me this time more than in any other Nolan movie is the criticism that he's a cold and calculating mechanic. Inception has an emotional core, but its weak, and it has a fantastic central idea, but its overall execution leaves a lot to be desired. The fact that you're left with theories to puzzle out is nice because not enough movies do that, and there were some indelible images impressed on my brain, which is also pleasant in another summer filled with familiar sights and sounds. However, it was bursting with potential to be so much more than it was, the ideas had so much more room to play than the fairly conventional way that things played out, and while the vagueness of environs and surroundings helps add to the mystery of the puzzle core, it keeps the audience's emotion at arm's length.
I can almost bet all my fortunes (this is not a large wager) that the exact same thing was said about The Matrix. It's once people got over what they wanted the movie to be versus what the movie actually was, that the movies strengths were allowed to be observed and appreciated.
N'Al on 27/7/2010 at 08:24
Saw this again yesterday; now got even more questions than answers. Great. Repeat viewing didn't really have the desired effect. :p
The Mombasa section in particular; depending on how you interpret it (dream or reality), it changes the entire rest of the movie.
SubJeff on 27/7/2010 at 09:13
The great thing about Inception is that unlike the Matrix the acting is all good and the script doesn't make you cringe.
Stitch on 27/7/2010 at 14:48
Yeah, that comparison isn't going to do you any favors. The Matrix, despite a few flaws--some wooden acting, a goofy love suplot that doesn't really work--manages to marry reality inverting brain teasing with crowd-pleasing popcorn entertainment far better than Inception. During my initial viewing of The Matrix, there were multiple scenes where the theater erupted in cheers. Everyone was just loving that shit. For comparison, Inception received polite applause at the end, and the (admittedly cool) collective "uuhhh" that followed the cut away from the spinning top, but only after losing probably a good ten people to mid-picture walkouts. Shit, only two out of my group of eight particularly liked Inception, and even they had complaints.
At which point it is entirely fair to argue that Inception is trying to do something different and more cerebral than The Matrix, to which I'd counter that no movie is exempt from the expectation of good storytelling. Inception does a lot of cool things, but it only a shadow of the great movie it could have been.
DDL on 27/7/2010 at 15:10
Pfff..you people and your character-and-story driven narratives.
Admittedly the goldeneye N64 ice fortress was a bit incongruous, but somehow the movie just really worked. It was clever enough to explain and justify what was happening, while not overexplaining enough to really highlight the various plot holes. I think I just really liked the setting and the concept more than any particular actual plot development, but I liked the concept so much that I didn't really pick up on the somewhat underwhelming character/story aspects until you pointed them out.
So yeah, thanks for that. :erg:
I'm surprised to see so much prestige love here, though: I thought that movie was a great idea, utterly ruined by the reveal. Which was sort of ironic, given the theme of the whole deal.
Shug on 27/7/2010 at 15:25
We need to wrap this thread up before Stitch's original opinion of the movie as "consistently interesting and watchable, but lacking emotion" manages to turn the corner completely to "unwatchable"
