^ Agreed. I have a buddy that hated Inception, and made it clear the moment we walked out of the cinema, but I needed a few days to digest the film and figure out if I really liked it or not. However, my friend was convinced the movie was crap and said something to the effect of "Hollywood has ruined Nolan", so I asked him what he meant, and he replied "Nolan is always cramming action into his films". When I offered up the idea that maybe Nolan likes making action/crime dramas he was stumped, as if the thought that Nolan wasn't kidnapped by WB execs and forced at gunpoint to shred his artistic license had never even taken form in his mind.
That was longwinded, but my point is that Nolan has always (at the very least) dabbled in gunfights and chase sequences and has been trying epic action set pieces for some time. It's clearly what he's interested in right now.
He's the kind of director that will slow things down and do something smaller and more intimate when the time is right. But while he's full of this youthful energy and thirst for putting out high concept pop cinema he should continue down that path as long as he wants. While he may not be an auteur, he does make blockbusters for the thinking man, and that's something we need more of, not less of.
