Inception (Blu-ray Review)

3 Dec, 2010 By: John Latchem

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Street 12/7/10
Warner
Sci-Fi
Box Office $292.3 million
$28.98 DVD, $35.99 Blu-ray
Rated ‘PG-13’ for sequences of violence and action throughout.
Stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Marion Cotillard, Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger, Dileep Rao, Michael Caine.

Since the film hit theaters, it has been the subject of several spoofs, most notably an episode of “South Park” that indulged a bit of fan-wank with a Freddy Krueger cameo. These efforts have been pretty thorough in dissecting the complications of the film’s structure, and it’s nearly impossible to re-watch some of Inception’s more-iconic sequences without this analysis in mind. The net effect might make some plot points seem cheesy, but the superior filmmaking quickly snaps the viewer back to director Christopher Nolan’s intended reality. This isn’t a bad thing, since it may take several viewings to fully dissect the film.

The Blu-ray’s “Extraction Mode” cuts into the film to show a series of featurettes that relate to creating the film.

For example, to construct the spectacular fight sequence involving Joseph Gordon-Levitt bouncing off the walls to take out an army of security officers, the crew built a hallway within a spinning rig and trained the actors in a precise choreography to bounce off the walls in sync with the movement of the set. It’s easily the most memorable visual statement of a film that’s loaded with memorable visuals.

As the plot dives deeper into the subconscious, jumping through myriad diverse settings, Inception seems to be a statement about the filmmaking process itself, and how dreams aren’t that different from films that all of us write and edit in our heads each night. This motif drives the documentary Dreams: Cinema of the Subconscious, an engaging 45-minute primer on dream research that covers why we dream, and what can happen when our dream states invade our realities.

The Blu-ray also includes a motion comic prequel to the film that is more of a footnote than anything that sheds new light on events of the film.
 

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