"Inception"

Richard's Review: 4 1/2 stars

Conventional Hollywood wisdom these days has it that audiences only want to see remakes, retreads and rehashes of old ideas. This summer has seen a seemingly endless parade of movies with the number 2 in the title and films based on 80s TV shows. Some have made money some have not, but every once and a while a movie comes along that proves Hollywood wrong.

Last December "Avatar" showed that audiences would flock to a movie that wasn't based on a videogame, existing novel or television show. It broke every box office record going and yet since then there has been a stream of derivative films clogging up the multiplex. Until now. Christopher Nolan's "Inception" is a startlingly original film.

Set in a world where technology can invade people's dreams, "Inception" stars Leonardo DiCaprio as Dom Cobb, the leader of a corporate espionage team who specialize in stealing valuable secrets from within people's subconscious for profit.

Cobb is an international fugitive tormented by dreams of his late wife (Marion Cotillard) who sees a way out of his personal nightmare if he takes on one last job offered to him by Saito (Ken Watanabe), a powerful businessman who can arrange for Cobb to skip past immigration and get back into the United States. All Cobb has to do is perform an "inception" -- plant a thought in the mind of Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy) CEO of a global corporation. (One writer has called it "the Great Brain Robbery.)

Cobb and his team -- Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Eames (Tom Hardy), Yusuf (Dileep Rao) and Ariadne (Ellen Page), an architect who becomes Cobb's new dream weaver -- set out to implant the idea of dissolving his multibillion-dollar business into Fischer's dreams.

"Inception" is the most innovative sci fi idea to come out of Hollywood since "The Matrix" way back in 1999. It's a movie that takes ideas very seriously -- ideas drive the plot -- and, as a result, takes its audience seriously. It never talks down to the audience and in return demands viewers to pay attention. For those who do there are many rewards, and for those who aren't willing to get drawn into the surreal story there are still many pleasures. That's how finely crafted this movie is.

"Dark Knight" director Christopher Nolan (who also wrote the script) proves he can blow the doors off with the action --Joseph Gordon-Levitt's MC Eischeresque gravity defying fight scene is a mind blower -- and can also handle the cerebral stuff.

He creates and juggles several worlds -- dreams within dreams, worlds within worlds -- until it becomes difficult to tell what is real and what isn't. Each of these worlds comes complete with their own rules -- five minutes in real life equals one hour in dream time, for instance -- and is populated with well rounded, complex characters. The visuals are very cool --check out the streets that defy physics and curl over on top of one another -- but amazing effects don't mean much if the people interacting with them aren't interesting. Nolan has put a great deal of effort into the look of the movie and its ideas but he never forgets the characters, who are the film's single biggest asset.

Like the very best sci fi "Inception" is thoughtful, intelligent, audacious and humanistic. It's also one of the year's best films of any genre.

"The Sorcerer's Apprentice"

Richard's Review: 3 1/2 stars

"The Sorcerer's Apprentice" is a remake of the famous segment in Disney's "Fantasia" in name only. Sure there are a few lively mops and other cleaning supplies that come to life, echoing Mickey Mouse's symphonic cartoon, but in the new version there is also wild special effects, Nic Cage's crazy hair and best of all, Jay Baruchel as the title character.

The story begins in 740 AD, when Merlin is betrayed by one of his three apprentices. A battle between loyal Merlinians Balthazar (Nicolas Cage) and Veronica (Monica Bellucci) and the turncoat Maxim Horvath (Alfred Molina) ends when Veronica is trapped in a magic nesting doll called a Grimhold with Horvath and evil sorceress Morgana (Alice Krige). Cut to the 21st century. Balthazar has searched for one thousand years to find "the Prime Merlinian," the only person powerful enough to kill Morgana and free Veronica from the Grimhold.

The centuries-long search ends up at the door of Dave Stutler (Jay Baruchel) a nerdy New York City physics student who sounds a lot like the guy from "How to Train Your Dragon." In the coming days Dave not only learns about sorcery, but also a thing or two about self confidence, his love interest (played by ScarJo look-a-like Teresa Palmer) and how to defeat the forces of evil.

"The Sorcerer's Apprentice" is the second Jerry Bruckheimer movie of the summer season, following "The Prince of Persia." Like "The Prince of Persia" this movie takes a thin premise and stretches it to feature length, but unlike the ill fated "Prince" "Apprentice" dishes up fun characters to go along with the trademark Bruckheimer action.

Baruchel, Cage and Molina ground the movie with, if not exactly believable characters -- I believe Cage as a thousand year old sorcerer, but I don't believe that hair is actually his! -- then characters that can hold their own against the film's frenetic pace and wild action. Director Jon "National Treasure" Turteltaub keeps the pedal to the metal, plunking in an action sequence about every ten minutes. The action is typical Bruckheimer CGI overdrive but is inventive and mostly family friendly. There are a couple of images that may disturb very young kids, but anyone over the age of 10 shouldn't find anything here they haven't already seen in video games.

Cage and Molina bring a larger-than-life feel to their characters. Cage isn't exactly in his extreme "Bad Lieutenant" form here, but he is clearly having fun; ditto Molina who clearly relishes playing the bad guy.

Those guys eat up the scenery but it is Baruchel who provides the heart of the film. He brings the same charm and way with physical comedy to this mega-budget film as he does to the smaller character based movies he makes like "The Trotsky." He's appealing and even when the romance aspect of the story starts to drag Baruchel keeps us on side.

"The Sorcerer's Apprentice" is a great air conditioner movie for these thermometer-busting summer days.

"Chloe" DVD

Richard's Review: 2 1/2 stars

Despite being a remake of a French film the new movie from Atom Egoyan bears all the earmarks of the director's work. Continuing his career long examination of sexual taboos and miscommunication he's made a movie that is part sexual Scheherazade, part Single White Female but is also his most straightforward movie in years.

Starring Amanda Seyfried as an escort hired by Catherine (Julianne Moore) to test her husband's (Liam Neeson) fidelity, it's a steamy thriller the director calls "an extreme examination of how to re-eroticize a marriage." Add to that a layer of sexual obsession and you get a film that feels like a throwback to the erotic thrillers of a couple of decades ago.

Egoyan has crafted a feature that breathes the same air as Fatal Attraction and Basic Instinct; films made when the director was busy making his own subtly sexual films like Exotica. At the time Roger Ebert wrote, "There is a quality in all of his work that resists the superficial and facile. Even at the very start, he wasn't interested in simple storytelling." Until now, Roger, until now.

There is no question that Egoyan is as gifted a filmmaker as we have working in this country, but Chloe, I'm afraid doesn't denote a high-water mark in his filmography.

He does, however, bring much to the table.

The film is gorgeous to look at—from the beauty shots of Toronto, to the collective "wowness" of the cast. To match the rich visuals he's brought his own sensibility to the story, and instead of simply remaking Nathalie, the French film Chloe is based on, he has populated the plot with strong female characters. And, as befits any erotic thriller there are twists and turns galore. Unfortunately most of them will be obvious to anyone who has ever read a Joe Eszterhas script and that is the film's Achilles' Heel.

The movie's closing moments play like a predictable b-movie, albeit a highbrow one, but a b-movie nonetheless.

Chloe marks the first time Egoyan has worked from a script that he didn't write and despite its angels -- nice performances and beautiful photography -- it made me yearn for the auteur of the Exotica years who would have made an uncompromising movie with a more dramatic ending.

"Greenebrg" DVD

Richard's Review: 2 1/2 stars

"Greenberg," the new film from "Squid and the Whale" director Noah Baumbach, is the kind of navel gazer where upper middle class people spend a great deal of time wondering what they're going to do with their lives. The movie sees Ben Stiller in "master thespian" mode playing the title role; a character so disagreeable he makes Larry David seem like Tinkerbelle.

In this story of Yuppie angst Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller) is fresh out of treatment for depression. Determined to "try and do nothing for a while," he takes on the easiest job he can find -- house sitting for his brother while his sibling is on business in Vietnam. It should be six easy, breezy weeks, but nothing in this guy's life is easy breezy. Between a sick dog, an alienated best friend and his brother's assistant Florence (played by mumblecore queen Greta Gerwig), he is reduced to a pile of misanthropic neurosis. Fighting off happiness wherever it may appear in his miserable life he alternately seduces and rejects Florence, playing her like a yoyo.

"Greenberg" benefits from Baumbach's ear for dialogue and his insight into the human condition, it's just too bad he wasted his talents on these two characters. Placing lines like "youth is wasted on the young… life is wasted on people," in Roger's mouth is clever and almost makes you like Roger, but Stiller plays him as such a self pitying sad sack; so socially awkward to the extreme with an anger management problem to boot, it is impossible to get onside with him. Stiller's best work has been characterized by tetchy characters, but in his comedies the angry edges are smoothed out by an underlying sweetness he brings to his roles. "Greenberg," the film and the character, are much more grown up than Stiller usually plays, but that maturity has brought with it an unpleasant edge.

In Florence Greta Gerwig has found an aimless character that seems to have stepped out of one of the low budget mumblecore films she is best known for. She's a doormat with enough self awareness to realize that she "has to stop doing things because they feel good" but seems to be unable to find the inner strength to improve her life or her choice of men. Gerwig, in an extremely natural and unselfconscious performance, however, plays her with no small amount of charm. The way she strokes the dog with her foot as they wait for the vet to see them is touching, subtle and very real. It's as un-Hollywood a performance as we're ever likely to see in a Ben Stiller movie.

The most convincing relationship in the film occurs between Greenberg and Ivan ((Rhys Ifans) an old friend and former band mate. Their scenes overflow with the well worn familiarity of two old friends who have grown apart.

The trailer makes "Greenberg" look much more like a Ben Stiller comedy than it actually is. While well made and intermittently amusing it is more a rambling character study of the kind of people you would normally spend your time trying to avoid.