It fundamentally comes down to the idea that the modern blockbuster is built from the ground up to favour commercial appeal over sheer artistry, which tends to result in films that are lacking in unique cinematic qualities or worthwhile substance because the powers that be are willing to take shortcuts to guarantee a perpetually profitable investment with minimal risk to that venture. That's the reason the MCU has become the current poster child for this phenomenon - it's turned out 24 films in the space of 13 years (for comparison, it took James Bond 53 years to reach the same number) that have become such perpetual cinematic events to the point where it doesn't even matter if the films themselves end up being good because people will pay just to keep up with the franchise anyway (which is true of older franchises, but it's reached saturation point with a cinematic universe involving multiple overlapping sub-franchises). If you've never seen an MCU film before, how well would [i]Infinity War[/i hold up on its own? At least Mission: Impossible at least has the novelty of seeing Tom Cruise do all manner of death-defying stunts for real even though the films are otherwise fairly flimsy. Even Inception can be said to suffer because of how it stretches itself between commerce and art - it's arguably smarter than the average blockbuster, but it's already been established that that's not a particularly high bar to clear (and there's also the matter of the usual Nolan criticisms about his...debatable effectiveness at actually handling human characters and emotions between the intricate setpieces and exposition of his films, which is liable to weaken his films more than anything else).
In any case, people can just not like it. Like I keep saying, even the tastiest peach in the world will still taste bad to someone who hates peaches.
I know I have hit out at this criticism again and again, and people are understandably tired of it, but why should he handle human emotion if he doesn’t want to? He’s doing fine with his high-concept cold commercial stuff, why do people assume the “human touch” is needed? There’s always, what’s-her-name, Greta Gerwig for that sort of thing, but Nolan is going for spectacle and doesn’t want to focus on emotions, surely that can’t be judged as an objective shortcoming - it’s just an authorial preference.
I, for one, have been exhausted and sick of “emotions” and “humanity” and cheesiness in film for about a decade, so I find Nolan’s sleek matter-of-factness very appealing, and I’m sure there are others like me. It’s one thing to say you personally prefer more human touch-driven films, but I think, if anything, Nolan shows it’s not necessary to prioritise people over ideas to consistently turn out successful work. I am very well aware that the word “emotions” doesn’t have anything to do with characters in a film “acting emotional”, but I feel there’s too much of an emphasis put on that. Solipsistic films have a place on Earth too, and, if anything, solipsism is exactly what
Inception is about, seeing as it’s about people trapped in their increasingly private dreams, so that approach fits its tone. I don’t even disagree with the “criticism” that Nolan doesn’t like to address human emotions, but I don’t quite see why it’s a criticism in the first place.