Inception - Thriller Films

INSTITUTIONS: Inception was directed by Christopher Nolan who has also directed Interstellar and The Dark Night Rises. Christopher Nolan was also the producer of Inception, along with Emma Thomas who also produced Interstellar. Inception was distributed by Warner Brothers - the distributors of Man of Steel and 300.

• During its opening weekend, Inception made $62.8M.
• Inception has a worldwide lifetime gross of $825.5M.
• Inception's budget was $160 million.

AUDIENCE: The target audience for Inception is young male adults who are interested in films that require a certain amount of thinking. This is because the plot of this particular movie can get extremely complex and at times difficult to understand. With a cc rating of PG-13, Inception is open to young audiences. This has very little impact on the target audience as the age is much lower than that of the target audience. The complexity of the storyline is most probably what attracts the target audience. Themes explored in this movie are supernatural (e.g. the manipulated dreams in the movie were out of the ordinary) this will help to attract a young adult target audience.

On IMDb - the Internet Movie Database - Inception has received a rating of 8.8 out of 10. The majority of film critics rate Inception very highly.

I agree with most of the critic reviews above as they mostly share the idea that the movie leaves you extremely confused as to what you just watched. GENRE AND CONVENTIONS: Inception is an action/sci-fi movie. it fits into both categories in my opinion as whammo scenes feature plenty of action and other scenes explore dream-controlling technology. Audiences of action movies expect intense chase scenes; gun fights; car crashes; an interesting, twist-filled plot and a narrative conclusion in which, usually, the protagonist succeeds. These conventions were featured heavily throughout the movie, particularly in the dreams - whammo scenes in particular. These dreams are what link this movie to science fiction as well as action. Audiences of Science fiction expect slightly different conventions such as technology, sometimes bizzare creatures and almost anything nonprosaic (out of the ordinary) as this will interest and excite this particular audience. 

Lucy (2014) is another film that shares the same genre and conventions as Inception. It not only features the action of whammo scenes but also the science behind the drug that accelerates her brain capacity. 

Inception is very typical of the action genre in that it packs in intense chase scenes and gun fights, but is also unconventional as it also explores the science fiction genre. 

REPRESENTATIONS: The main characters in Inception are a young adult, white, American male played by Leonardo DiCaprio and a young, white, American student played by Ellen Page. They are both represented as intelligent, particularly the young student, and are both strong, courageous and determined. The main character is emotionally attached to the dream world as it brings him to his deceased wife.

The film is set initially in America but enters the imaginary world of peoples dreams. Most representations explored are positive except it can be depicted that the dream world is dangerous.