Saw Inception last night and it was amazingly awesome. An excellently made film with a good cast, great special effects, and most importantly, an original and solid script that’s not based on a comic book, television series, toy line, or a poorly made sequel or remake. Apparently there are still some original films being made in Hollywood. I won’t really post any spoilers or go into plot specifics because I’m too lazy and you should see the movie for yourself if you haven’t. I never really thought of Leonardo DiCaprio as a good actor since I just hadn’t seen many movies with him, but Mr. Titanic is pretty impressive in this movie. I also just happened to see The Departed for the first time last week since it was on TV here, and that was pretty good too.
So yeah, Inception was very impressive. It was a great balance of action, suspense, SFX, philosophy, and any other words that people who actually know what they’re talking about might throw in there when discussing film. That being said, I really hope they never make a sequel. I know, I know, some people are probably thinking that such a great concept leaves a lot of room for a second or even third film. And of course studio execs would love to milk this for as much as they can get. But if you couldn’t tell from the first paragraph, I am so sick and tired of sequels and other excuses to make unoriginal films. What is wrong with people in Hollywood? OK not just Hollywood, since Japanese films are now almost exclusively comic book based and terrible. Is there that much of a lack of originality? Or is it a lack of balls to take a chance on something untested, instead going for something with a pre-existing fanbase who you hope to milk for money. Star Trek a few years ago was admittedly a pretty good movie, but if that much money and manpower was put towards making an original space sci-fi action movie, couldn’t it have been even cooler? G.I. Joe is a good example of a movie that probably relied too much on building off people’s nostalgia but ended up being more or less awful.
The Matrix was an amazing movie, and I still think it is, but the sequel wasn’t nearly as good and the third movie was absolutely terrible. Rather than make a sequel to Inception I’d love to see Christopher Nolan write and direct a totally brand new film. Sure an Inception sequel could be great, but it could also be a reason to get lazy. And no, you can’t improve on a crappy film by making it 3D, regardless of what every studio seems to think right now.
Also another minor note about movies: I hate sitting around until the end of the credits on the off chance there’s an extra scene. I complained about this back when I saw Watchmen. After writing that blog I found and commented about this site called MovieStinger that actually lists whether or not a movie has a bonus scene after the credits. I need to remember to check this from now on when going to the theater, because I really am sick of sitting there for nothing. Had I remembred about this site before, I would have known that Inception has nothing after the credits and I should have just left immediately.
