Batman Begins (2005). Details, lots of details. As if Nolan has written a book, a manual on how to be Batman. It’s a good comic book origin story, but still, it’s got nothing on my favorite origin movies—Spider-Man and Guardians of the Galaxy.
Irreversible (2002). A friend once told me of a movie about an amnesiac, in which the story was told in reverse—or something like that. I forgot what the title was and so when I saw this movie with the woman from Malena standing nude on the cover, I thought this was the movie he was referring to. I was wrong. He was talking about Christopher Nolan’s Memento; and this is by Gaspar Noe, a guy who surely knows how to shock.
Memento (2000). Not sure whether this or Batman Begins was first Nolan movie I saw. Here, Nolan cuts his story in the middle, then cut it further into pieces and spliced them like a puzzle. Only that, after all the pieces were in place, it kinda feels pointless. That’s it? It didn’t blew me away.
If you want something that’s really hard to follow, try Shane Carruth’s Primer—now that is one mindfuck movie!
The Prestige (2006). Based on Christopher Priest’s novel about two magicians engaged in a stiff one-upmanship. Some critics bemoaned the lack of showy flourish, but I like it nonetheless, it’s my favorite among Nolan’s films. The story employs multiple flashbacks, shuffling the sequence of events. Yet, unlike in his other films, the non-linear storytelling is fluid and doesn’t feel like a gimmick. Also, it’s got David Bowie as the great Nikola Tesla and that Thom Yorke song at the end credits is just perfect. While the secret to Angier’s final magic act was pretty much given, I didn’t realize Borden’s trick until it was revealed. It was also quite obvious though, if one carefully pays attention. But maybe Cutter (Michael Caine) was right, I wanted to be fooled.
The Dark Knight (2008). A friend once defended this film by saying that critics nitpick on things Nolan wasn’t particularly good at—like staging good fight scenes—that it wasn’t his forte, and that the movie was great nonetheless. Well, I don’t know. Aren’t well staged fight scenes of primary importance in movies like this? Hellboy 2, Spider-Man, Kick-Ass, and Blade 2 all have memorable fight scenes. Heck, even the third X-Men movie has at least one memorable action sequence. And despite all the detailed upgrades on the Batsuit, both looks and functionality, Christian Bale doesn’t improve much on Michael Keaton’s Bat-Stiff.
Inception (2010). Despite its multilayered narrative, some people find Nolan’s dream within a dream movie, linear and literal. And I tend to agree with them. Aside from the arresting visuals and one inspired sequence, this was just as problematic as Memento. Unlike Satoshi Kon’s Paprika, Inception is hardly “dream-like”. Near the end of this quite long movie, when it looks like Dom Cobb will succeed anyway, no matter what the odds are, I thought that it was probably more meaningful to snuggle, take a nap and dream for real; instead of the two plus hours I just spent, inside Nolan’s shared world of daydreaming.
superuselessf*ckingreviews 