Trailer Impressions: Inception

The newest film by Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, Momento, Insomnia) called Inception has been pretty mysterious to say the least. Over the past few months all we have seen of the film has been a few surreal scenes involving the lead Leonardo DiCaprio (Catch Me If You Can, Blood Diamond, Shutter Island). However, after the most recent trailer a lot more of the films plot has been revealed. First, the film seems to center around a not-to-distant future organization which specializes in invading the dreams of the sleeping. Up until this most recent trailer all we have really seen was DiCaprio in the film. However, this most recent trailer has highlighted the supporting cast. Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon-Levitt are highlighted in particular. It seems that Ellen Page is playing the new recruit to the dream catcher organization (hired right out of college it seems). Gordon-Levitt seems to be the hotshot second in command. I was very surprised to see both of these actors in the trailer since I was not aware of the fact that they were even in the film. I was excited to see Joseph Gordon-Levitt working with Nolan since I believe Levitt is one of this generations best actors and Nolan is one of the best working directors of this generation.

The plot of the film seems to revolve around DiCaprio's character training Page's character at first. There is also a mention of DiCaprio "finding a way home" after "this last job."

One of the things that struck me about the trailer were its visuals. A film that deals with dreams would have a tendency to go in the way of the bizarre (think the dream sequences in Terry Gilliam's Brazil) however, it seems that Nolan is going for a much more real look at our dreams. DiCaprio's character mentions that "Dreams feel real while we're in them, it's only when we wake up that we realize something was actually strange" and it seems that that statement is the theme of this film. While the visuals of Inception look to be interesting they are all very real. We see office buildings, snowy mountains, and hotel hallways. There are no psychotic clowns running around and there are no strange nightmare creatures. It seems that Nolan is going to take a real look at the reasons why we dream and how it alters our perception of reality.

So as you may have guessed by now I am really looking forward to this movie. This is probably the one film I am very excited for this whole summer and it's probably the only film I'll have any interest in seeing at midnight.

Here's the trailer so you can see for yourself