Inception kicked ass.

Usually, spending a lot of money on your movie translates to it having more explosions than cast members (I'm looking at you, Michael Bay). Inception decided to fire an intellectual bullet into the head of that stereotype. Kick-ass.

- After all these piss-poor big-budget movies to come out over the summer, Christopher Nolan returns to show that he is a master craftsman.
- Although it is a summer blockbuster (aka cost a lot of money), it still chooses to have a deep and complex storyline.
- It beautifully blends philosophy, surrealism, and action cinema into a film richly layered with top notch performances.
- Inception tugs and twists our perceptions — daring us to ask whether we’ve wrapped our heads around it, or we’re only half-remembering a waking dream.
- Hang on because it's confusing as hell at times.

In the history of cinema, there is no twist more groan-inducing than the “it was all a dream”(notable exceptions like The Wizard of Oz aside). Yet director Christopher Nolan creates a high-octane piece of sci-fi drama built around "it was all a dream".

It’s tempting to compare this film to some amalgam of the Matrix, James Bond movies, and the 1984 thriller Dreamscape, and while there are certainly similarities, Inception defies comparison to live as a movie all its own. Nolan has truly created his magnum opus; an achievement of such grandeur, it’s remarkable a film of this quality was made in this day and age.

Inception is near perfect; Intelligent without being impenetrable. The film has no shortage of thrilling action sequences yet none feel arbitrary. The action, for once, serves the story instead of the other way around (Im still looking at you Michael Bay). The visuals at times are absolutely breathtaking. The Joseph Gordon-Levitt anti-gravity fight scene is a stunner. There’s a number of other larger action set pieces I’d hate to give away, but each packs as much punch as any other action movie offers, while giving us an emotionally satisfying climax.

The film stars DiCaprio, in a career-best performance, as Dom Cobb, a white-collar thief who specializes in the art of extraction, a futuristic technique that allows him to enter a person’s dreams and remove even their darkest secrets. DiCaprio devours his role with gusto, using his screentime to deploy an endless variety of knitted brows, grimaces and gesticulations. (Between this and Shutter Island, it seems he’s mastered the art of playing the tortured thirty-something.) Joseph Gordon-Levitt turns in an excellent performance as Arthur, Cobb’s partner in crime. Tom Hardy plays his role as a caustic, latter-day superspy to the hilt, breaking up the film’s otherwise self-serious proceedings with some well-delivered deadpan levity. DiCaprio is also haunted by the memories of his dead wife played by Marion Cotillard, giving us one hell of a great femme fatale performance.

After Cobb’s dream-raid on a Japanese CEO named Saito (Ken Watanabe) goes awry, Saito turns the tables on Cobb and hires him to use his skills against the soon-to-be CEO of a rival corporation (Cillian Murphy). And the dangled carrot is a promise that Cobb can return to his estranged children in the U.S. The catch? This time, it’s not Extraction he’ll be up to, it’s “Inception” — planting, not stealing a memory; A task some feel is impossible.

Inception involves planting an idea in someone’s mind while making it appear as if it germinated organically.

Like any decent heist movie, Cobb has to assemble a scrappy band of genius-savants to pull off this robbery: Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, Dileep Rao, and Ellen Page (Apparently, the best dream snatchers are kids from indie movies and The Dark Knight.)

As Cobb and his team train for the heist and then delve deeper and deeper into their mark’s dreams (with degrees of consciousness arranged as “levels,” like a videogame) a rollercoaster of hallucinogenic special effects overwhelm the senses — objects of all sizes are created and disintegrate, staircases become infinite à la M.C. Escher, and entire cities bend, twist and explode into dust before our eyes.

At 148 minutes, Inception is hardly a quick film but it moves with such speed and efficiency that you never really feel the length. Even when it’s over, the movie stays with you, begging for conversation, discussion, debate and, eventually, another viewing. I’m sure it’ll even pop up in your dreams. Nothing wrong with that. We should all be dreaming a little bit bigger.

If you want to see my only problem with the film ***SPOILER ALERT***



After everybody gets back out of the insanely deep dream, everything works out OK, just like any other summer movie, right? Well, kind of. As soon as Dom gets home, he spins his top on the table to make sure this is not a dream. And the top keeps spinning. And spinning. And SPINNING!

All of a sudden, when the top starts to wobble, your eyes are treated to a whole lotta this:






Exactly. Nothing.

Hope you enjoyed losing your mind.