When Inception fist came out, it seemed to be regarded as a film the likes the world had never seemed before, that it contained unknown and unexplored mind-blowing concepts that the human mind could not completely understand. Its plot was allegedly so crazy that it took multiple viewings to understand. Inception was being hyped to be the next cornerstone in American Cinema, the next 2001: A Space Odyssey, the next Citizen Kane, an untouchable classic. After finally watching it recently, I think it’s okay.

Inception is a fun and interesting concept, and the appeal is certainly there (it did create the idea of “something”-ception). An idea within an idea (within an idea, etc) isn’t quite something that new or creative, however. A dream within a dream is something that was a classic trope in real life, let alone movies. The movie even uses dreams as its tools, I wouldn’t say the idea or concept is uniquely divine or unique. That being said, the way its utilized and played out in the story is pretty fun, and it’s certainly rewarding when the entire thing comes to an end! But this concept doesn’t really elevate Inception into a classic, nor does it really make Inception anything more than a classic Nolan action flick. But that’s alright, because it’s a really good action flick with more depth than the average, it just wasn’t up to the standard that I thought it was going to be up to due to the hype.

Likewise, the plot itself is pretty simple. There aren’t any major twists or turns until the very end, from my understanding it would have been hard to not understand where the plot was going. I didn’t have to watch it 10 times to completely understand the multifaceted story, one view should suffice for anyone planning on viewing. Again, this isn’t a bad thing! In fact, this probably makes the story stronger, generally movies that you have to watch 10 times to understand probably suffer from poor story telling. The story itself is interesting enough to keep your attention, and as long as you’re partially actively listening you should be fine with understanding where it is going.

Honestly, the most interesting thing to me about Inception is its ending (Spoiler Alert). Not because of the theories and crazy ideas that it spurred, but because it seems like a lot of people (those making those theories) kind of missed what the ending actually was trying to say. The entire movie has the main character, Leonardo DiCaprio, struggling with the idea that at any moment he could be dreaming and nothing in his “reality” could be real. At the end, when he finally finishes his adventure and returns to his children, he spins a spinner that is a McGuffin to show that he isn’t dreaming. Before the McGuffin finishes spinning, the screen cuts to black so that the audience doesn’t know if he was dreaming, just moments after Leo himself walked away from it, not caring to see the results himself. What I find beautiful about this scene is what Nolan is trying to say, not the implications it has to the Inception universe. He’s trying to say that regardless of whether or not Leo was dreaming, it doesn’t really matter. He found happiness, he feels happiness, he’s content. Whether or not this is “real” by our qualifications doesn’t matter nor change his feelings, since these things really give him happiness then they’re real enough for Leo. I find this concept one of Inception’s strongest, that it doesn’t matter if your within a dream or in another reality or any other bogus plot a story can make up, it doesn’t matter if it’s all one big simulation, it directly contradicts the entire plot of the film and the motivation of the characters and gives each individual the keys to their own happiness. If you want to be happy and something makes you happy, embrace it. Who cares if it isn’t “real”, as long as it’s real enough to make you happy?