InceptionSo first up is the modern classic about stealing dreams and shit. I've always wanted to write a review about this movie because despite how much people like it, and how good it actually is, I have nothing but shit to say about it. It's one of those movies that I can't help but pick apart, and while I would usually write this off as me just reacting to how popular it has gotten, because nothing makes you hate more than something other people like, the biggest problem I have with the movie is pretty simple. I just don't fucking care about anyone in it.
Anyone. And to be honest, I doubt you do either. I've noticed this with Nolan's other recent movies, most notably his Batman movies, because as good as they are, I don't care about what happens to Bruce Wayne, or Batman, or the Joker, or Harvey Dent, or whoever was in the first one. I definitely don't care about his girlfriend, who was played by different actors in each movie, and actually died in a very dramatic way. Doesn't matter, because I don't care. And in this movie I don't care about Leo D, who's character name I can't even remember, or Ken Wantanabe, or whoever. There isn't even really an antagonist in the movie, all we get is the mental projection of Leo's stupid dead wife, who killed herself by jumping out of a building, after they both killed themselves by laying down in front of a Dream train. In fact the entire plot of the movie is how he can't go back to America because his wife's death was stupid and for whatever reason, they thought he killed her. Like he just randomly felt like pushing her out a building. Actually they didn't even say that, he just left thinking they would. She died so they have to think it was me! That just makes you look guilty dude! What an idiot. So yeah, like I feel bad for this asshole who was too dumb to take his fucking children with him when he left the country. Oh I hope his top stops spinning! Then there's that other problem with the movie that comes from it simply not meeting my expectations in one pretty fundamental way. It's a movie about dreams with almost no surrealism.
Plus, why try to persuade someone the boring old "talking to them" way when you can INCEPT them?
So when I first saw the teaser trailer for this movie, I, like everyone else, was enthralled. I think it was just some scene text leading up to two guys running up and down the walls before jumping at each other, and I couldn't help but say "Holy shit, what is this?!?" Then we got more trailers with the booming music, and we see scenes of a city folding in on itself and some exposition to explain the basic idea behind the movie, and I'm so excited that there will finally be a big budget Hollywood movie taking on the theme of dreams and the power of imagination. And then we get a movie that has like one scene with visual surrealism before turning into a few different scenes of random bullshit happening stacked on top of each other with plot heavy exposition tying them together. The first scene; a van falling off a bridge. Second scene; people in a hotel flouting around. Third scene; Level 3 from every First Person Shooter.
So instead of having this movie, which is like 90% a dream, depending on how you interpret the stupid ending, feel like a dream, it feels like bad science fiction with sciency "Dream Rules!" Like how time speeds up in a dream, or makes normal life slow down, or whatever. Or how getting killed in a dream either wakes you up, or sends you to some stupid limbo dimension for 100 years. Or that a dream within a dream is literally a dream within a dream. In fact, I remember that one bugging me right off the bat, because it's retarded. Everyone has dreamed so we all know these rules are bullshit, but since they kind of line up with our experiences, or things we might of heard about dreaming, we follow along. The problem for me was that I know a dream is just my brain trying to entertain itself while the rest of my body is being lazy, so dreams are just pure imagination, and the plot of this movie revolves around the you inside your dream also having a dream, and then having that guy then have a dream. Isn't that crazy? Yeah, bullshit. A dream within a dream so to speak, is when you transition from one dream to the next, which is usually something that just happens since dreams are crazy, but in this case are done though your mind tricking itself into thinking it's woken up when you haven't. So no, there aren't people in your head, who can then dream up their own people inside their head, your mind is just an asshole.
"You don't get it, if you die in the dream you die for real go to Detroit!"
So the entire plot of this movie becomes a huge distraction. Not to mention the fact that I die in my dreams all the time and nothing ever happens because it isn't real. If I get shot, then whatever, I guess bullet holes don't hurt me. If I fall from high up, then I bounce. If I start to drown, I find out I can breath under water. Because it's not real, because it's a dream. And this movie doesn't treat dreams like dreams, it treats dreams like virtual reality. There's the part that recognizes the sensation of feeling like falling before waking up sometimes, so they decide to wake people up in the movie by seriously dropping them, instead of just going up to them and saying "Hey asshole!"
In fact so much exposition is put into figuring out how they can wake each other up and "ride" it out at the end that when you look at the movie and you see them going to such lengths to DROP EVERYONE IN A VAN off a dock thing, or BLOW UP an elevator so it will move and then stop because everyone is floating, that it almost ruins the whole thing if you think about them just simply waking each other up. No explosions or car accidents, the guy left behind to wake them up just slightly slips them to get them up. You would get that in any other movie. But not INCEPTION!
Yeah, the spelling is really like that. There's even a scene where a guy is like "Little e, big X, i, s, t, e, n, big Z!" It's the name of a new virtual reality game thing. So for anyone who hasn't seen this movie, everyone, you can probably guess why I would compare this with Inception. They are, in many ways, two movies with the same theme executed in completely opposite ways.
Written, Directed, and whatever elsed by David Cronenberg, this was one of the movies that got a lot of attention for being a "like the Matrix" movie that came out before the Matrix. Which means when the Matrix started to get popular, a lot of people said "eXistenZ was better." They said the same thing about Dark City and the 13th Floor, and its all bullshit. Not that the Matrix is the best movie ever or anything, but the fact that these movies came out first just proves that they got their shot at being popular, or even "actually seen" before the Matrix stole their thunder. But whatever. eXistenZ is still a good movie. Because it's written and directed by David Cronenberg.
I first saw this movie back in the day on the Sci-Fi channel late one night. I had no idea what the movie was about and hadn't even heard of David Cronenberg, who is one of my 3 favorite directors, next to Danny Boyle, and John Carpenter. So this weird movie with little production value and a dumb name comes on the Sci-fi channel, and you can imagine my thoughts on the movie right off the bat. I mean it was on the Sci-Fi channel, I'm surprised I even stopped to watch it. It's an ugly, weirdly acted, almost nonsensically written take on video games that is clearly written by someone with no knowledge of video game culture, and has the production value of a high school play. And it's still a great movie that will leave you thinking and wanting more after it's over. Also it's Canadian.
The basic plot is Jude Law is watching people try out a new virtual reality system when armed terrorist people try to kill the game designer, played by the girl who is the lead. I don't know who she is. They get away, meet Willem Defoe, and have weird stuff happen. They decide to go into eXistenZ, and it more or less plays out like a dream. They go into a game within that game. And as they move between different levels of reality, they all start to merge together, until it's clear that the reality we were in at the beginning wasn't actually reality.
Willem Defoe turns out to be a bad guy who probably just wants to kill Spider-man
Although you know they're in a virtual reality, the whole thing is surreal, which is something Cronenberg is good at. Anyone that's seen Naked lunch, or any of his movies really, probably already knows that. Scenes move along without necessarily having a purpose, and stuff just kind of happens. Jude law works in a factory that makes weird organic animal parts used for technology and is a triple agent spy guy in the game, despite being a bodyguard in the outside world. all of a sudden the factory just randomly has a restraint in it and he sits down with that girl character and is forced to order the special, which is a really gross looking frog fish animal thing. He starts eating it, not being able to stop himself and he uses the bones and other remains to fashion a gun. He then pulls out a bunch of teeth, pops them in and bam, tooth-gun.
So this is where the comparison comes, not because they are similar, which they are, but because of their differences. Where Inception is pretty and sleek, eXistenZ is ugly and awkward. Where Inception is plot heavy, exposition thick, serious, and complicated with it's rules and execution; eXistenZ is simple and dreamlike with it's surrealism that plays with the audience's notion of reality and what's really going on. Where Inception is "Deep", eXistenZ is "Actually Fun To Watch."
I mean, look at their fucking names.
Inception- a sleek techy deep sounding word.
eXistenZ- what the fuck, you actually called a movie that? They almost sound similar.
The real twist end is that it's neither real nor a dream because it's a movie
You can see where each movie's head is at, just by looking at the name. One is a expensive, buzz-worthy exercise in letting dumb people feel smart. The other is a low budget experiment with all kinds of wacky shit going on. So yeah, it obvious which one I prefer, since I'm doing nothing but talking shit about big dumb Inception, but to be honest, I don't really care about which is best. Inception is better made, eXistenZ is more interesting. They represent two sides of filmmaking and Art itself.
And yeah, they also have the same ending. Inception ends with the top spinning, making you wonder if it's a dream, if perhaps this whole ting has been one long dream, while eXistenZ ends with the reality we thought was real being overrun with the surreal violence of the games, leading to us finding out that the real reality was something we hadn't seen yet. We find out that the violence in the game was a result of the players pychies, and it's reveled that the two main characters, who have spent the entire movie running from terrorist that hate technology, are the actual terrorist that hate technology. They start executed the other players and the last one is left to ask "Wait is this part of the game?"
I risk sounding like a elitist that looks for validation by disagreeing with the popular opinion, but fuck Inception. Seriously. There's nothing really even wrong with the movie itself, as much as the response to it. Yeah, it was made to be excepted by audience as being this deep, well written thriller, but it's everyone's fault that they actually bought into it. It's one thing to bad mouth Transformers, which isn't even made to be anything but dumb action, but when you call something like Inception a modern classic, I start to worry. I don't necessarily want to play the Inception "can't be art because it looks too good and is popular" card, but, yeah I guess I do. You can't have a fucking dream within a dream.
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