Review: Inception
Dreaming of a different life?
Have you ever had a dream that was so ridiculously cool you thought it could be a movie? Did you try to write it down? Or explain it to your mates? Yeah? You did? And how did it go?
Often, trying to translate dreams into reality is about as successful as an ice block surviving in a sauna. Dreams have a pesky habit of being so weird and indescribable that, um, we’re all unable to describe them because they’re so weird.
But the guy who made The Dark Knight, director Christopher Nolan, has somehow put together an entire film about people constructing and controlling dreams – while inside someone’s head!!
Nolan’s Inception is the first blockbuster since the mind-bending The Matrix (1999) to be as committed to making your brain hurt as it is to delivering slo-mo thrills and epic explosions.
Leonardo DiCaprio plays Cobb, a smarty pants who – with the help of some fancy gizmo – can enter his own dreams, or those of others. With a team of top-notch technicians including Juno’s Ellen Page and 500 Days Of Summer’s Joseph Gordon-Levitt, DiCaprio descends deep into the dream world of a businessman set to inherit his dad’s empire.
Trying to explain Inception in a few sentences is tough, and not a nice thing to do for those who have yet to see it. Indeed, this complicated movie is best enjoyed when you don’t know much about it and have to work it out for yourself. Let’s just say Cobb and his team break in to dreams to steal things or implant ideas, and this involves gravity-defying fights, thoughtful guidelines and a big blurring of what is and is not real.
Depending upon where your life is at, living in a dream can sound pretty appealing. Sweet dreams can be places where you get everything you want and all the bad stuff of this world gets kicked to the curb.
As Cobb experiences in Inception, though, trying to live in a dreamworld also can become a nightmare when we try to avoid and run away from real issues.
How guilt, remorse, deception and emotional/psychological strain invades Cobb sub-conscious and imagination is hardly meant to be realistic but it should make you think about the ways you deal with difficulties or stress.
Rather than employ Leonardo DiCaprio to enter your brain and rewrite your dreams, Christians have a real, available and powerful God to call upon for assistance – whether you are, or are not, “living the dream”.
As Jesus explains in Matthew 6, between verses 25 and 31 (NIV): “I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear…. Your Heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore, do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”
In other words, The Master Of The Universe is ready and waiting to help those who are troubled yet trust in His loving support. Sure, Inception is full of amazing concepts and excellent visuals, but there’s no way we can really “live the dream” without relying upon his assistance.
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