EXPECTATIONS TOO HIGH FOR “INCEPTION”?

Early reviews of Christopher Nolan’s Inception have been so ecstatic that they have prompted Los Angeles Times entertainment writer Steven Zeitchik to warn that they could result in unrealistic expectations among moviegoers. In today’s (Wednesday) edition, Zeitchik remarked that they could “lead the people distributing a film to believe they have a bigger hit than they do, and lead the moviegoing public to believe they’re going to see a better movie than they are.” Rarely has a film ever produced the kind of over-the-top hagiography for its director. At Aint It Cool News, “Mr. Beaks” wrote that “Nolan joins the company of Coppola, Lean and not too many others as a filmmaker who treats the big canvas … with the steely verve of a chess player who can see dozens of moves ahead.” In the Hollywood Reporter, Kirk Honeycutt wrote, “Following up on such ingenious and intriguing films as The Dark Knight and Memento, Nolan has outdone himself.” Steven James Snyder of Techland commented that the movie “is so unbelievably inventive and intelligent that I’m convinced a studio just gave Christopher Nolan carte blanche to do anything he wanted.” At News Corp’s IGN website, Jim Vejvoda wrote that “Inception could be the film to do what Dark Knight didn’t do for Nolan, i.e., win him an Oscar.”