Inception

One of this year’s most anticipated film releases is Christopher Nolan’s Inception, director of Memento, and the new the Batman Series, i.e. Batman Begins and The Dark Knight.
Inception like most of Nolan’s work, promised to be epic, with inventive action scenes, an engaging storyline, moving performances and twists galore; and on most part Nolan delivered this and more.
In the world of Inception, there is this device that enables people to share dreams with each other, this device is used by protagonist Dom Cobb played by Leonardo DiCaprio, as a way to infiltrate a target’s subconscious, stealing information from them, for paid clients. In all tense and purposes he is a thief, extracting information out of people’s dreams. The catalyst occurs when Cobb accepts the challenge of implementing the near impossible task of inception; the concept of planting an idea into someone’s subconscious as if it were their own. The target of the planned inception is Robert Fischer, (Cillian Murphy) heir to a massive empire. The plan is to plant the idea of destroying his father’s empire deep into his subconscious. And so like any other heist film, the leader, Cobb, assembles his team, including; Cobb’s trusty sidekick Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), dream architect Ariadne (Ellen Page), forger/ shape shifter Eames (Tom Hardy), chemist Yusuf (Dileep Rao), client Saito (Ken Watanabe) and tagalong Mal, (Marion Cotillard) Cobb’s wife. And so begins an intense adventure travelling far away from reality; deep, deep into the limbo of ‘subconscious-ness.’
All the performances are incredibly solid, and each actor has a great understanding of what they are doing/talking about, this confidence allows the trusting audience to suspend belief and be entrapped in this exciting new world.
The story is incredibly inventive and intellectual but at the same time it is really easy to understand and follow. Yes, the story is really intricate, there is layer upon layer of details and we could sit here all day debating about what happens in the film, but even though it is so in depth, the screenplay has been structured so well that the film is easy to follow. But because of this solid structure, and the pattern that the film builds throughout the crisis points, the story becomes slightly predictable. After the first viewing the story did not leave me with a satisfying feeling of surprise, none of the twists were really hidden, and compared to The Dark Knight, there wasn’t as much shock value evident. However on the second viewing I instantly fall in love. There is this moment after the beginning action, where Cobb say’s that he “hates trains,” and instantly I knew I was going to love picking up on all the subtext and knowledge hidden deep in the screenplay.
Naturally the action scenes are amazingly inventive; one particular scene of a gravity-free fight is incredibly impressive, and along with the amazing use of CGI and the beautiful cinematography, results in the film becoming a visual masterpiece.
This is a film that will always bring new levels of understanding to each viewing, and I definitely recommend seeing this film more than once. It really makes you question what we perceive as reality or instead what we perhaps may/should perceive as reality, and I will agree without a doubt that Inception is one hell of a dream ride.
Ps. To the 16 year old fools standing outside of the cinema that said Inception was boring, and that the only good scene was the gravity-free fight; EITHER grow a brain to be able to comprehend the sheer intricate awesomeness of the story OR die.