and can i just say... IT IS BETTER THAN INCEPTION.
you know what source code had that inception didn't?
A STORY.
i saw inception in Manila last year. i was ecstatic to finally watch the movie after seeing the trailer a number of times and being so absolutely enchanted by it. with that amazing score, the topsy-turvy buildings. what was going on? it was so captivating. it had to be good right? it had to be one of those movies i didn't want to end, right? ...right?
WRONG.
about half-way through, i got bored.
okay, ellen page jumped on screen as an American studying architecture in Paris. fancy, Juno post-preggers. cute JGL, and ken watanabe.. and yea, leo dicaprio, what a cast. the folding over scene arrived. the tomato crates blew up. the score came on.
and then that was it. if the movie theater 's temperature wasn't set to ice cold. i was sure i would've dozed off.
DON'T GET ME WRONG. my favorite movie, EVER, is the Matrix. Trippy, pre-inception, Y2K CGI in action. it's not that my brain couldn't handle the concept, and had to have an inception to understand the plot itself. oh, i understood inception. i understood it, and well over, i thought i was going crazy thinking, that was it? that was the complicated, brain-twisting, inception everyone was talking about? the movie worth watching twice in the theaters?
i didn't pay $12 to see the movie. in fact, i probably paid, $3.50 (after PHP to USD conversion). i'm not the type to get up in the middle of the movie even if it wasn't as entertaining as i thought it'd be. so even if i paid less that i would've stateside, i sat through and thought somehow, this'd get better right? still, i sat there and thought, scene after scene, what is the point?
okay, i guess, inception did have a story. in fact, it had a gazillion stories spun into some trippy web, which in the end, did not really have any significance whatsoever. i guess there was the main character, dicaprio, longing to see his children again. and the end was probably the only thing that ties me to the movie, and i'm pretty sure, might be the same for the other viewers who were duped to thinking that the movie was ingenious, but was in fact just thrown over the fact whether the totem fell or not.
this was inception for me. a cgi lecture on how to fold buildings over each other, a psychology lecture about dreams, an overload of character development that leads nowhere, and finally an attempt to wrap all that up by sympathy for two unknown children who miss their dad. it was definitely an explosion in the mind as it tried to connect too many dots together, missing the picture altogether.
after watching source code today, i was challenged to think about the parallels between this movie and inception, and in what ways the former captivated me more than the "glorious" oscar nominated latter.
it is my simple way of praising the smart, albeit miniscule, movie, source code.
the story was simple, yet it had the mystery that hooked you in. it sorta had a similar ending to inception; and although it didn't leave the audience much room to second guess themselves much like inception did, it was still worth it.
no, it wasn't as complex or brain busting as inception was thought to be, but wasn't -- because it was more of a sensory overload; which i hope was the original intent of the creators, 'cause then in that way it could be a thrilling ride in universal studios much like the 3D king kong probably is--
no, source code goes to show that sometimes a creative idea, even with a seemingly lacking budget for overwhelming CGIs and a fantastic score (i'd have to say)... can be translated in a straightforward manner.
i'm no fool.
here's a review from The New Yorker that i totally agree with, if anyone feels like reading.
just to exquisitely elaborate on what i've been babbling about: http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/cinema/2010/07/26/100726crci_cinema_denby
thanks for reading, and have a good day :)
*i'm no writer, just a girl randomly writing an overdue opinion.
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