So I saw Inception last weekend –
Wait, hold on. Let me clarify.
There are too many movie reviews in the world. Nowadays everybody wants to jump on the Internet or join their college newspaper to tell everybody about their stupid opinions about movies. What are you, Roger Ebert’s missing thyroid? As if we needed someone to tell us that The Last Airbender was going to be a bad movie.
So I’m not going to review Inception. I’ll tell you that it’s pretty cool and I’d recommend it, but that’s about the extent of my opinion on that subject. I’m going to review something else. Something that desperately needs reviewing: the people who watched Inception in my theater.
Unfortunately, I’m not going to be able to do this without SPOILERS so if you haven’t seen it or don’t want to hear any SPOILERS, it’s time to click away. I haven’t included any SPOILERS thus far, but that policy is about to get tossed out the fucking window. To make sure you haven’t accidentally seen anything in the next paragraph, here is a giant photo of Danny Trejo. If you have seen it or don’t really give a shit, PROCEED.
All right, let’s do this.
So at the end of the movie, it’s not clear whether or not Leo DiCaprio is dreaming when he sees his kids again. The top spins, then falters, then it goes to black. So we get a nice little ambiguous ending.
What bothered me is that when I saw it, everyone in the theater let out this “AH HA!” noise after it happened. Like people were so fucking impressed that a movie didn’t end with absolute clarity. I may be an elitist. In fact, I may be a rather large one, but come on. How did people not see this coming?
There are only three ways that a movie about dreams can end:
(1) IT WAS ALL A DREAM or The Super Mario 2 Ending
This is the underhand pitch. Whenever you see a movie about dreams or illusions or clones or whatever, you’re always worried that you’re going to get the “It Was All A Dream” ending. As an audience member, you don’t like it because you feel like you were shortchanged. If everything you just saw was just a dream, then who gives a wily fuck?
Dreams aren’t real, so we don’t care about them. This is extra true if they are other peoples’ dreams, and especially if your girlfriend wants to tell you one after morning sex. Nobody wants to hear about how last night you dreamt you could fly but that your feet were made of toast. Nobody fucking cares. In a movie, it’s an easy writing backdoor with no consequence. Nothing in the story matters because it was all a dream. Total bullshit.
(2) SAPPY FACTOR 7 or The “You Beat the Badguy, Got the Girl, Won the Lottery, and Your Children Love You Again” Ending
This is only slightly above the “Dream Ending” in terms of quality. If movie endings were pancakes, this would be a short stack from Denny’s that was reheated in a microwave. Yeah, it’s better than the “Dream Ending,” but only because the “Dream Ending” is so bad that if it were a pancake it’d be a cow pie that kind of looks like a pancake.
Endings where everything works out are almost universally unsatisfying in anything that isn’t an action movie or a wacky comedy. If you use it a drama, it ends up feeling like you were cheated out of something. It’d be like going to see Hamlet but instead of dying of poison, Hamlet becomes a balloon salesman. It would just seem… stupid.
Which leads us to…
(3) INDECISION 2010 or The Choose Your Own Adventure™ Ending
If you don’t want to choose the lesser of two evils, just don’t make a choice. If there are only three ways to end your movie, don’t choose the two that are shitty. For some dumb reason beyond my comprehension, this is the best of all three options. If your choices are IT WAS ALL A DREAM or EVERYTHING WORKED OUT PERFECT, you probably don’t even want to choose. So why bother? Fuck it. Make the top keep spinning, slap a Hans Zimmer score on top of it, and go out for cheesecake. It’s a win-win.
I guess I’m just disappointed that people were so awed by this ending. People keep talking about how deep and confusing the movie was. There were so many layers. C’mon, people. This isn’t integral calculus. It’s a heist movie about stealing ideas. Or “incepting” them into peoples’ brains.
This was just like when people thought Memento was confusing. Are people going into movies expecting an episode of CSI? I mean, the movie is cool, but it’s not the fucking Godfather. It’s a just little more complicated than Tron, for Chrissake. Every character is basically a stereotype wearing French cuffs. And good for them. When I’m watching people fight in a giant spinning hallway, I don’t want things to get too complicated.
Anyway, I’ve probably complained enough about something incredibly stupid. To make it better, I’ve attached a silly picture. I hope you enjoy it ever so much.
P.S. I did not make this drawing. But it’s hilarious.
