'Inception' analysis.

Christopher Nolan's Inception is an outstanding action movie. Not just in terms of quality, but in the way it distinguished itself from other run-of-the-mill, bog standard action movies released as of recent. It had a clever concept of manipulating dreams, and how that can be made meaningful in a way. For me, it's the best action film since Matrix, in the sense that it's viscerally entertaining and fun to watch, but also has a fair amount of thought put into it, using the theme of dreams to explore deeper themes, ideas and messages. This scene in particular revolves around a dream within a dream (the hallway) that is heavily affected by the dream that it's in (the car chase). The truck swerves and barrel rolls, causing Arthur's dream world (the fight sequence) to shift its centre of gravity. It's almost as if the hallway is on wheels and it's swerving and barrel rolling.

The spectacle, of course, is the constantly-shifting centre of gravity in the hallway, and the fight that happens throughout it. It's an original idea; having a standard, recognizable hand-to-hand combat sequence with the reaching-for-the-ever-moving-gun cliche thrown into the mix, but having the world shift and twist and jolt around it. The music is incredibly effective, starting out with a deep bass and fast violin, evolving into a faster tempo with ascending notes. The constant ascension of the notes ties in with the theme of anticipation. The tension builds up and up and up, until it abruptly ends, just as Arthur kills the last guard. The movement and shifting of the hallway is also random. We can see how each moment of the fight is affected by the change in gravity, linking to the next moment of action. The randomness of the world movement keeps us on edge, as a fight is taking place anyway.

The action alternates between hand-to-hand combat and a car chase that ends in a crash. The car chase revolves around a van full of people tied up to another dream world, so they're not conscious of the drivers dream world. The driver swiftly escapes oncoming threats by pulling men off bikes and using the traffic to his advantage. The danger here is twofold: the threat of Arthur being neutralized by security guards, or the car, with all the vital characters on board, crashing and killing everyone inside, locking them inside someone elses dream forever. The car chase physically effects the hallway scene, as opposed to two separate action scenes going on at the same time, causing two ongoing threats.

By this point, the audience is either nauseated or engaged. The tension caused by the two ongoing threats may lose audiences, but this scene is relatively manageable compared to the rest of the film. The rest of the film switches between a dream, a dream within a dream, a dream within a dream within a dream, etc. It's sometimes hard to keep track, but this small moment of 3 minute action lets the audience forget all the previous confusion and let them enjoy something everyone understands: violence. If this film was a cerebral drama that still revolved around the idea of dreams within dreams, I doubt it would have succeeded as much as it did. Weaving in action with cerebral set pieces can appeal to two audiences at once, entertaining the smarter film audience in a different way to the common film audience. Even if you didn't understand the film, a simple hand-to-hand combat scene with a cool twist, will engage you no matter how high-brow you consider yourself.

Leonardo Di Caprio plays the main hero of the film, Dom Cobb, but this scene revolves around his assistant, Arthur. He's initially sent on a recruit mission, but encounters problems along the way, with the drivers world constantly affecting his world, and the trouble it takes to neutralize Ken Wantanbe's character, Saito. He has an overtly suave attitude when dealing with stressful situations, and can easily navigate a room where the floors are ceilings in a matter of seconds. Despite not having a word of dialogue in this scene, actions define a character. With that thought in mind, we see that Arthur is incredibly capable, smart and tactical. There's more character development in the rest of the film, but this is where he shines as a character, taking on the seemingly impossible task of pulling off a flawless combat sequence in a nausea-inducing hallway. He is made to seem like the only competent one in this scene, with the security guard constantly tripping over and Saito falling into an elevator door.

This is one of the better action films out there, with all the pointless Transformers and Fast and Furious sequels out there, at least Inception has a brain. A confusing, twisting and often frustrating brain, but a brain nonetheless.