Das US-Magazin Salon über den Sensationserfolg „Inception“ von Batman und Memento -Regisseur Christopher Nolan (es könnte eventuell sinnvoll sein, zunächst etwas über den Film zu lesen, so man ihn noch nicht gesehen hat):

„This is the most tight-assed vision of the innermost human psyche I’ve ever seen. While Nolan’s images are visually impressive and powered by state-of-the-art digital effects and accomplished stunt work, they’re always ordered and organized with anal precision. They don’t look or feel anything like dreams. They look instead like mediocre action films from the ’90s, or in the case of the supremely boring ski-patrol vs. Arctic fortress shootout found on Level Three, like the Alistair MacLean adaptation „Ice Station Zebra“ from 1968. (With Rock Hudson! And Ernest Borgnine!) „Inception“ may have been directed by Christopher Nolan, but Nolan’s dreams are apparently directed by Michael Bay. (…) it’s fairer to call „Inception“ a maze movie or a labyrinth movie than a puzzle movie. Because, as the wisecracking fellow critic sitting next to me observed, every time the story gets puzzling the characters call a timeout and explain it. (…)
For all the complexity, craftsmanship and color of „Inception,“ it’s yet another of his ultra-serious schematic constructions with no soul, no sex and almost no joy, all about some tormented dude struggling with his ill-managed Freudian demons. That same guy sitting next to me cracked that Nolan needs to stop seeing a therapist; there’s not nearly enough sublimation in his movies.

(…) Leonardo DiCaprio, last seen as the psychiatry-textbook protagonist of Martin Scorsese’s „Shutter Island.“ DiCaprio’s only 35, but he’s become a vastly different actor in his post-pretty-boy phase, and always seems to play guys who have a dead wife, a sweat-gland malfunction and a really urgent need to find the toilet. (…)

His dead wife, Mal (Cotillard), only visits him in dreams — his own and other people’s, even though that’s not really supposed to happen — and doesn’t act all that friendly. Let’s just say that as obvious names for ominous female characters go, that one pretty nearly takes the cake. You didn’t want to call her Fatale, Chris? Or Eve L. DeMenta B. Yotch?

The themes, ideas and characters of „Inception“ are all introduced with brilliant economy, along with its moral and philosophical universe. And then Nolan proceeds to hammer them relentlessly into the ground with an increasingly clumsy, clunky plot and an allegedly profound mystery that just sort of fizzles out into what-if-this-world-isn’t-real sophomoric musing.

(…)

It’s basically „Mission: Impossible II“ minus Tom Cruise and John Woo, plus „Ocean’s Eleven“ minus a sense of humor and Las Vegas, plus „A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors,“ with Marion Cotillard standing in for Freddy Krueger. Except that I just made it sound a whole lot more fun than it really is. (…) All of this involves a bunch of big-ass guys shooting at each other with automatic weapons, which has to be the most arid and depressing depiction of the dream state I’ve ever encountered. (…) For the most part „Inception“ is a handsome, clever and grindingly self-serious boy-movie, shorn of imagination, libido, spirituality or emotional depth.“

(Andrew O’Hehir in Salon über Inception)

Mit Dank an Katja!

Inhaltsverzeichnis:
* Die ersten 300 Folgen Schmähkritik
* Wer disst wen?