Enough with the Inception-is-coming clatter. We’ve all been sold on the idea that it’s the only decent summer flick on the horizon, and now it’s time, dammit…time to quit farting around and show it to somebody somewhere. Warner Bros. has to be extremely careful about early look-sees because they don’t want reports about the big third-act surprise getting out. But they need to start having little peek-ins — i.e., not “screenings” per se but carefully controlled, outside-the-box witnessings.
Show it to some boomer-aged Swiss scientists in Geneva who can be trusted not to blab online. Take a print (or a hard drive) to Beijing and show it to some Kentucky Fried Chicken employees after closing. Have a surprise outdoor screening in some small Montana town — show to some grizzled old guys with calloused hands who won’t be able to comprehend most of it. Show it to some big-name directors and producers on the Warner Bros. lot — Steven Spielberg, Bryan Singer, etc. — and then have an after-party and allow some media people to mingle and report what they’re saying.
I’m just feeling a little snippy about reading yet another here-it-comes piece. “Give us some more hints, Chris,” whoa-hoa!, “It’s actually a love story…going soft in my old age…On Her Majesty’s Secret Service,” blah, blah.
They really should have shown a 25-minute Inception product reel at Cannes. That would have sated the troops, and people like me wouldn’t be snorting and grumbling as we speak.
“Here’s our latest take on what [the story] could mean,” writes The Playlist‘s Rodrigo Perez. Oh, God…exactly what I’m talking about!
“Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) specializes in the secretive art of constructing and entering dreams in order to extract information. He is given an intriguing proposition: take a job where he won’t extract anything, but rather, insert an idea.
“Then things become complicated. DiCaprio’s character presents himself to Cillian Murphy‘s business magnate character as an expert in ‘subconscious security — the ultimate in corporate espionage'” In truth, Cobb has been hired by rival of Murphy’s character (Ken Watanabe) to insert an idea. That job also somehow offers DiCaprio’s dream thief character some kind of personal redemption connected to the fate of his wife (Marion Cotillard).
“And it’s pretty clear that while DiCaprio and Watanabe are allies at first, somewhere along the lines, they become foes.
“Another potential hint lies in Ellen Page‘s architecture character, and ‘assistant’ to Cobb, the aptly named Ariadne, who was you might remember from your school days, is the girl in Greek mythology who aids Theseus’ escape from the Minotaur’s labyrinth. We think her ‘assistant’ role will be more than she bargained for and more than what we have been led to believe thus far.” Wait…secretly in the employ of one of Cobb’s rivals or adversaries?
DiCaprio has the best line: “[The script] reminded me of Insomnia and Memento, but on steroids.”
Inception opens on July 16.
