10. Inception (2010)
So, let me get this straight. You have a film where people can enter the mind of an individual through their dreams and ferret out information thats useful in the real world. They have to be careful to remember its a dream, however, or they may lose themselves when they forget that it isnt real. Yeah, that sounds an awful lot like
The Cell (2000) to me. People gushed over this film. When they finished praising Nolans genius, it was as if Hitchcock and Kubrick rose from their graves, took his hand and declared him the next big thing. I didnt see the film in theaters, but I had friends come to me afterward and say, It was so complex. I need to see it twice. It was so COMPLEX. They kept repeating the word
complex. I started to wonder, even before seeing the film, if they werent equating complexity (i.e. their inability to understand it) with greatness. Then I saw the film and realized, yes, they had been tricked by Nolans ridiculous plotting. Too much didnt add up: is limbo really a threat when you can just kill yourself to wake up? Why doesnt Fischer (Cillian Murphy) recognize Saito (Ken Watanabe) in his dreams (theyre both power players in their field)? Im not saying consistency is a requirement for a film to be good, but dont try to trick me into thinking youre deep by throwing massive amounts of information at me, scrambling it together until its unbelievably murky, and basically saying, Here, you do something with this. Thats just lazy.