Inception

I just saw Inception Sunday night and as a result, I'm not sure that I'm actually awake right now. Thank you very much, Mr. Christopher Nolan. Despite having to sit in the front row of the theater and feeling a little nauseous, I think this movie rocks.

So Leonardo is a guy who steals ideas from people's minds by sharing a dream with them. Apparently, the military developed this dream-sharing machine so that soldiers could fight each other in their dreams without actually hurting one another. So, Leo cons people into letting him into their heads so that he can steal their ideas from the safe inside their mind.

Now in order to see his children again, he has to find a way to plant an idea into some one's mind. The target in question is Scarecrow from Batman Begins. Head Samurai from The Last Samurai needs Scarecrow to dissolve his company and end a monopoly that is choking out competition.

So Leo is on the case along with the kid from 3rd Rock from the Sun and Juno and a couple of others. In order to pull this off they'll have to dig deep into Scarecrow's head. They need to infiltrate his dream, then convince him to have a dream within his dream so they can plant an idea into his subconscious.

"What's that last part?"

This movie can get pretty complicated at parts. For example, there's a part where they're in a dream falling in a van, and within a dream within that dream there is no gravity because they're falling in a van within their dream, but at the same time they are going into a dream within a dream within a dream but then somebody gets shot and that sends them into another dream. When they all wake up, how do we know we're still not in a level of a dream?

"Go on."

Although the movie does get a little sappy at parts with Leo's relationship to his dead wife and Scarecrow's relationship to his father, and Juno's relationship with walking funny, the concept is really clever, the action is really cool, and the special effects are pretty amazing. The scene where kid from 3rd Rock from the Sun is fighting a dude in a rotating hallway, was phenomenal because it seemed real. They weren't doing anything that would have been impossible if you really were in a rotating hallway. This isn't the Matrix. This isn't Alice in Wonderland. These guys were slugging it out in a dream and it seemed real. Kudos to Christopher Nolan for not going overboard with scenes like that.

"I would have preferred a smidge more Matrix-y-ness."

Acting-wise, I was impressed with Leo as usual. He had a pretty difficult job in this movie trying to show frustration with Juno about how she keeps pressuring him to reveal the secrets in his dreams and construct dream worlds when he can't because his subconscious in the form of his dead wife will sabotage it. Try wrapping your head around that scenario and make it believable. Leo does.

I'm still waiting for Juno to seem less Juno-y but she was good. Kid from 3rd Rock from the Sun had some great moments. And wait til you see Tom Berrenger all bloated and old. He was good.

So go see Inception. Try to sit near the back. And bring a totem.

"I might just go see The Sorcerer's Apprentice."

I give this movie an 8 out of 10.

"Oh, no! My head's exploding!"

Predators

Okay, here we go! Predator is awesome, Predator 2 is also pretty awesome. Alien is awesome, Aliens is also really awesome. So why did AVP and AVP 2 suck so much mandible? Well, maybe Aliens and Predators don't work that well together. Sure, we all geeked out when we first saw that Alien skull on the Predator ship at the end of Predator 2, but maybe that's where we should have left it. Aliens and Predators interacting in the same universe- It's just one of those things that is cool to allude to, but utlimately it's t00 awesome to capture on screen.

"So here comes Predators! We're leaving the Aliens out of this one, guys. In fact, let's ignore that any movie besides Predator exists. We'll start fresh and it will be awesome, Quentin"- Robert Rodriguez talking to Quentin Tarantino (his only friend)

Well, they definitely started fresh. This time, we're not even on Earth. The deadliest people on our planet have been kidnapped and taken to a Predator hunting ground on another planet. They're parachuted onto the planet, unconcious, and they only have the weapons they were captured with. They band together and piece together what is happening to them surprisingly quickly.

"Well, obviously, we're being hunted for sport by aliens with more advanced technology on another planet with the other most deadly people on Earth...obviously."

So what's happening to them? Well, they're being preyed upon. But these aren't your typical Predators that we all know and love. These are "super" Predators. They're slightly bigger and have scarier masks which include jaw bones. They are also less honorable than the regular Predators (Although, a regular Predator was defeated by Danny Glover before, so maybe they're just a little less cocky and more careful to actually not get killed by their own prey).

Danny Glover- Predator killer and terrible judge of character.

As this band of killers tries to survive together, they meet up with Cowboy Curtis who has been on the planet for quite some time- at least long enough to develop an interruptive imaginary friend. I won't ruin the ending, but it involves the Predators taking off their masks and growling.

What are you waiting for?! Kill me! Do it now!

Overall, I was happy with this movie. It was definitely way better than the last two Predator movies. There were great characters and a simpler plot. The new Predators look great. And I really enjoyed the idea of going to another planet for the hunt this time. Although I wish they would have capitalized on that idea a little bit more by showing off some more alien animals and plants.

Or maybe, like a sexy female predator with huge boobs and...no, sorry. Forget it.

Robert Rodriguez wrote a pretty badass script. It does contain some cheesey lines that only Rodriguez could have directed correctly like, "I think we'll need a new plan" or "Let's get the hell off this planet."

Nimrod Antal is named Nimrod Antal. He is the director and his name is Nimrod. Nimrod. He has directed Vacancy and Armored and his name is Nimrod. He did an adequate job. But Nimrod missed a lot of chances to put this movie on par with Predator. Nimrod didn't build in any suspense. In Predator, we felt like we were in the jungle with Arnold and Apollo Creed. We had to be really quiet, too, otherwise the Predator might hear us. In this movie, everyone's talking so loudly, it's like they don't realize the situation that they're in. YOU'RE BEING HUNTED! YOU KNOW THIS! SHUT THE FUCK UP!

Didn't shut the fuck up.

Also, the new Super Predators seem pretty incompetent if the 3 of them can't kill these people. For being larger, more dishonorable versions of regular predators, they really suck at preying. In the first one, the Predator was all alone against a team who really knew their shit. He had to wait patiently and strike quickly just to kill one of the guys otherwise he would have been torn to shreds by that giant Gatling gun. In Predators, there are three of them hunting fewer humans who barely even speak the same language. Not really sporty.

Not to mention there was a huge dissapointment in the gore factor on this movie. I don't want to give anything away, but somebody gets shot with an energy weapon. But instead of getting a huge hole in the chest or getting his arm torn off while still pulling the trigger on his Uzi, this guy just explodes in a flurry of awful CGI. No imagination whatsoever. He just explodes. Sure one guy gets his skull ripped out along with his spine, but it just doesn't look real or painful or cool.

"My arms are really strong."

Also, this movie does ask that you suspend your disbelief a little bit more than normal as you try to accept the fact that Adrien Brody is actually tougher than Danny Trejo (By the way, the preview for Machete looks awesome). Adrien Brody got ripped for this movie and good for him, but he was also doing the Batman voice- you know, unnecessarily gravely to seem more tough. That was pretty lame and Nimrod should have recognized this.

If you're not interested in anything else that's out right now, go see this movie. But I would recommend Inception instead. Wait for Predators to come to FX.

I'm gonna stop doing the Scpork ratings. Too confusing. This movie just gets a 6 out of 10.