Inception (2010)

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Inception is a 2010 action film from director Christopher Nolan. In it, Dom Cobb ( Leonardo DiCaprio) is given a chance to return to his children if he and his team can infiltrate the dreams of a wealthy business man's son ( Cillian Murphy) and successfully plant an idea in his subconscious.

Overview

Extraction: a technology developed in the near future called 'Dream-Share' that can be used to enter an individual's dreams and rob them of their secrets. It's this form of theft at which Cobb claims himself to be the best, and it's for that that he's garnered a reputation. A slight mix-up involving a few of his close teammates, as well as his own subconscious, puts him on the bad side of Saito, a power-hungry CEO.

It's from there that Cobb gathers a team with which to perform a feat considered by most of those practising Extraction to be impossible: Inception. It is the act of entering one's dream, and instead of stealing ideas from their psyche, placing them there. On the allusion that Cobb has successfully performed such an action before, the team moves forward with their plan.

Unfortunately for everyone involved, even Cobb himself isn't aware of just how unstable his own psychological stresses are. His own subconscious begins to bleed over into the dreams of others, complicating the job ten-fold. What ensues is a complex, well-delivered narrative wrapped in one of the most grippingly unique tales of espionage in recent history.

Production

Concept

When director Christopher Nolan first encountered the concept for Inception, he envisioned a film that dealt explicitly with giving a group of people the ability to access another person's unconscious mind. His original intentions for the project was to make it a horror story, but eventually came to the conclusion that a heist flick connecting on a deep emotional level -- not quite the norm for the genre -- was the way to go. Nolan had worked with these ideas since he was sixteen years of age, calling into question his own ability to alter events and locations within his own dream state. It was from there that the script for the film was born.

Writing

Actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Dileep Rao and crew on the set

After writing an 80-page treatment for the idea, Nolan found himself dissuaded with his own work. He was quick to discover that the emotions throughout the writing didn't resonate as well as they should have for a story focused around something as deep as the unconscious psyche. the director continued his work on the concept for around nine years while gaining first-hand experience on big budget films with Batman Begins and The Dark Knight. It was after the latter of the two finish production that Nolan spent six months finishing the script. After several attempts at attempting to get the actor to work in his films over the years, Nolan was able to convince Leonardo DiCaprio to take on the lead role as the first person cast in the movie.

Filming

Filming began on June 19, 2009 in Tokyo, Japan. From there it moved to Cardington, England. Many of the zero-gravity shots were done here. A 100 ft. hotel corridor was constructed by production designer Guy Hendrix. It was rotatable at 360 degrees and was suspended along eight concentric rings that were driven by two electric motors. Joseph Gordon-Levitt spent several weeks learning to navigate and even to fight in the contraption, and Nolan as well as the production staff were extremely satisfied with the end results.

Paris, France was the next filming location where the scene between Ariadne and Cobb was shot. The crew was forbade from using actual explosives to create the collapse of the dream, so they concocted some high-pressure nitrogen to create the effect. In Los Angeles, California the staff had to forge a lengthy car chase sequence that involved bringing a train through the street. The train itself was a model crafted from fibreglass and was moved through the street on a tractor trailer. Los Angeles was also where the iconic scene involving a slow-moving van plummeting from a bridge was filmed.

Filming wrapped up in November 2009 at Fortress Mountain in Kananaskis, Alberta, Canada. Over three months, a set was constructed to handle the film's climax. The production staff waited for a large snow storm before filming the assault on a massive fortress. When the fortress was destroyed, the tower of the building fell over in the wrong direction and a miniature of the fortress was built in Los Angeles and destroyed again.

Release

Commercial

On July 16, 2010 it was released to the public in both standard theaters and IMAX screens. On its opening day the film grossed $21.7 million with 1,600 locations participating in midnight screenings. At the end of its opening weekend, it grossed $62.7 million. The film grossed $292.5 million domestically and $531 million overseas, making its worldwide gross around $823.5 million. It is currently the 25th highest grossing film of all time.

Critical

Reviews pertaining to pre-release press screenings were overwhelmingly positive, keeping the movie ranked high on various review aggregate websites. Critics were praising the intricate design of the story, the outstanding acting, and the mind bending action sequences. When the doors finally opened to larger, more critical media outlets, reception back-pedalled, pulling Inception down to a respectable 87% Fresh rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and earning it a value of 74 on competitor Metacritic.

Inception was nominated in four categories at the 2011 Golden Globes. These include Best Director, Best Motion Picture - Drama, Best Original Score and Best Screenplay, however it failed to win in any of these categories. The film faired much better at the 2011 Academy Awards. It was nominated in eight categories which were, Best Motion Picture, Best Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Visual Effects, Best Cinematography, Best Art Direction, Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing. It won in four categories, Best Cinematography, Best Visual Effects, Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing.

Home Media

US Limited Edition Gift Set

On October 14, 2010 it was announced that Inception will be released on DVD and Blu-ray on December 7. There was also a Blu-ray Limited Briefcase Edition released in the UK on December 6. The briefcase was a replica of the one used in the film. It included the Blu-ray, DVD, digital copy, special features disc, theatrical dream machine leaflet, four art cards showing the main key art, and a spinning top (Cobb's totem from the film). Later, the US also received a similar sort of gift set, but this one was limited to only 2000 units. The US version included everything the UK version had, plus a 33 pages long, full-color prequel comic entitled The Cobol Job. The comic revolves around Dom Cobb as he and his dream team take on the job that open the film with Saito.

Adaptations

Video Game

In late September 2010, Christopher Nolan said he is looking into the idea of creating a video game based around the world of the film, using ideas that aren't condensible for a feature length production. Nolan said that it was something they were looking to do in the long term, "in a couple of years".