Tuesday, February 15, 2011

Date Night/Inception

First off let me state that I will have spoilers scattered in my reviews from now on, much like I already have, because I have found that doing these blog posts without spoilers isn't as easy or enjoyable when I'm watching what I say.  Thus, spoilers can be found at any time ... just a warning.

Now on to the reviews.  This past weekend we got in a couple of movies amongst the housework and wedding planning, those movies being "Date Night" and "Inception".  For the first time in a while both movies that I got from the beloved Redbox I really enjoyed.

Let's start with "Date Night".  The premise of the story is that Steve Carell and Tiny Fey are a married couple stuck in the married couple routine.  A couple of their friends decide to separate leaving them worrying if they aren't headed the same direction.  Then on their date night they decide to break the routine and go to the new restaurant in town ... without a reservation of course.  They get there, take another couple's reservation, and then get mistaken by mob men basically (who turn out to be cops) as that other couple.  They then have to escape them, try to figure out what is going on, and in the end set up the corrupt cops/DA and the mob.

Generally I'm not a real big Steve Carell but I enjoyed him and the other characters in this movie.  While there wasn't a great deal of depth to any of the characters they were all enjoyable and well done.  The story line was also fun to watch and flowed well.  There were plenty of humorous moments throughout as well.  Overall a good movie worth watching.

The second movie I had heard mixed reviews on but after getting the thumbs up from a friend of mine I tried it and I am glad I did.  I really, really enjoyed the movie and the story was pretty original.  The concept behind the movie is that people could interact with each other in dreams when hooked up, and by doing so one could insert them self into another's dream to find their secrets or the like.

The movie began with Leo DiCaprio (another actor that I didn't care much for in the past but don't mind as much now) and his crew in the dream of another man trying to find his secrets.  Turns out he was testing them and afterwords offered them a job that would allow Leo to go home to his children.  (He couldn't return to the states as they believed he had killed his wife ... which in the end you find out he did sort of.)

Leo then puts together his team of people to do what most didn't think possible ... to put an idea into their mark's head.  Most didn't know it was possible because the idea must come from the person or it wouldn't work ... but Leo knew how to do it.  After the team is put together they put together the plan to jack into the mind of the target, get into his dreams, then fool him into putting the idea into his own head by going into dreams inside dreams.  In the end they do what they need and he can return to his kids, but at the very end the seed of doubt was put into the head's of the viewers that perhaps he was still in a dream himself ... a thought I had myself prior to that anyway.

Overall I really, really enjoyed the movie.  I thought the characters were great, the storyline (while potentially confusing if not paying attention) was very well done, and the whole premise was fairly original in a world where most movies and stories being put out are just rehashes of others done a slightly different way.  Some of the animations and actions done within the dream, such as folding the world over on itself, were very cool and well done.  I would recommend this to anyone but I would say that you have to really watch to really appreciate it.

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