Review: Inception

"Inception" / Rated PG-13 / Warner Bros. / Dir. by Christopher Nolan / 148 min.

I hesitate to write this. I almost don't want to call it a review. I think I need to see "Inception" a few dozen more times before I'd feel adequate in describing it. Imagine if M.C. Escher was born 80 years later and chose film as his canvas. Then imagine if he made a "Bourne Identity" style action-thriller. That's "Inception".

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Dom Cobb, a dream extractor who is hired by companies to enter people's dreams to find and steal valuable secrets from their subconscious. He initially used his unique skill set for more noble purposes, but after an tragic event (which isn't revealed through the first half of the film), he has to stay on the run, making a living in the seamier underworld of dream-entering.

However, he's offered a proverbial "last big heist" which, if performed successfully, will clear his name. It's dangerous and he assembles a crack team to help him: Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is his point man, Ariadne (Ellen Page) is the architect who designs the dream world, Eames (Tom Hardy) is the "Forger" who assumes different identities within the dream and Siato (Ken Wantanabe) is the employer who insists on tagging along to make sure the task is completed. To reveal any of the plot beyond this would be patently criminal. The movie is as twisty and multi-layered as the dream states it strives to create and each plot point, even seemingly unimportant ones, ends up serving a greater purpose.

The true star, of course, is director/writer Christopher Nolan. Nolan is every bit the talent and genius that M. Night Shayamalan has convinced himself HE still is. He has created a story, a world, a cast of characters so multi-layered and complex that it simply cannot be fully appreciated in one viewing. The movie is almost 2 1/2 hours long, but I spent the bulk of that time leaning forward not wanting to miss a frame. Nolan, is a true original, much in the same way that Orson Wells and Alfred Hitchcock were. He dares to make big-budget, major-studio films that deal with ideas. Yes, "Inception" is a special-effects lollapalooza, but the visual tricks are there to serve the story. They exist to immerse you in the world, not to justify the world's existence.

I loved this movie. I felt the same way after seeing it that I did after seeing "The Dark Knight". I just knew that I saw something that was going to polarize some people, something that was going to spurn impassioned conversations among cinephiles for years to come. Something that, I believe, will emerge as being one of the great films of it's time. Right up to the last frame of the film, Nolan is daring you to interpret the movie, but he refuses to spoon feed you the answers, ultimately leaving you to decide what it was all about. How nice is it to have a director that not only trusts you to do your own thinking, but encourages you to think more deeply, all the while keeping you emotionally engaged and entertained. Nolan also directed "The Prestige", a film about the world of magicians. With "Inception", he proves himself to be, once again, one of the truly great magicians of cinema.

Grade: A