INCEPTION

4.5/5

Inception

Director: Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, Insomnia)

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio (Shutter Island, The Departed) Joseph Gordon-Levitt (500 Days of Summer, G.I. Joe:Rise of Cobra) Ken Watanabe (Memoirs of a Geisha, Letters From Iwo Jima) Cillian Murphy (Red Eye, 28 Days Later) Ellen Page (Juno, Whip It)

I'm brimming with excitement just sitting down at the computer to write this. I just got back from the movie theater and I want to give the entire movie away, just to have someone to vent my excitement on, but I won't. This will be an entirely spoiler-free review, as hard as that will be.

Inception follows Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and his team of hackers as they attempt to break into the subconscious of others and steal their thoughts. Because of the career and life he leads, Dom has been forced to run from his children in America and live a life of exile. Searching for a way home, Dom receives an offer from a businessman, Saito (Watanabe.) Saito wants the heir to a rival company, (Cillian Murphy) to denounce his title when his father dies and break up the empire. For this to be possible, Cobb must do the opposite of what he normally does: instead of extraction, he must perform inception, placing an idea inside someone's subconscious rather than taking one out, a concept which many consider impossible. Dom is promised a way home if he can complete this task.

Now, despite some problems with the narrative and Ariadne (Ellen Page,) who's character existed purely to answer the audience's question and act as the naïve, young character, which extended the narrative unnecessarily in places, Inception is a thrilling and highly intelligent summer blockbuster that should revolutionize the way that audiences perceive what a great summer movie should be. For action junkies, the action is in top form, with engrossing Nolan-style camera work and plenty of it. The special effects are superb and realistic, and I give a special credit to Christopher Nolan for not going 3-D on this-it would have been tragic. It also gives something to audience members looking for a thinking man's movie; it has the central themes of coming to terms with the loss of a loved one and going on despite their absence. Nolan takes what was a classic crime plot and gives it a psychological twist, something that he did with great results in Insomnia.

This ensemble cast is impressive. DiCaprio at the helm plays an intense, and complex character, a character very similar to his in Shutter Island, but there is something more to his performance here; a more confident, charismatic element. Between this and Shutter Island, DiCaprio is sure to get an Oscar nod this year, and I hope that it is his year. He has waited too long and too patiently for his well deserved Best Actor award. Joseph-Gordon Levitt is solid as Cobb's right hand man, Arthur. He beats up bad guys while floating through the air, and looks good doing it. Cillian Murphy, who is a Nolan regular, gets his first major role in a Nolan film as Robert Fischer Jr., the heir to his father's corporation. He portrays a man who never lived up to his father's expectations, and this strain in his relationship with his father is one of the things that allow Cobb and his team to do what they need to do, but I can't give too much away! Murphy is superb, he gives a very emotional and passionate performance. The only weak link in the cast is Ellen Page, who, again serves as an information vehicle: “But, how...?” "But why does this....?” This is the only part of the script that gets tiresome.

Inception is definitely worth the ten bucks, nay absolutely worth the fifteen bucks for an IMAX ticket. It's an engrossing, smart, and mind-bending trip into not only the minds of the characters on the screen, but also your own mind. I can safely say that I don't think I will ever look at a dream the same way again. Inception may not be Freudian, but it definitely delivers on every level. Check it out as soon as possible.