Inception is the most innovative idea I've seen in a film since The Matrix. Dominic Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) steal information by infiltrating the minds of their subjects. Mr. Saito (Ken Watanabe, an actor I always seem to like) wants something different though. He wants to plant an idea in the mind of one of his competitors. "Inception" as it is called is thought to be impossible though, as the conscious mind of the subject would be able to figure out it was tricked. Dom and Arthur will try to surpass this hurdle by building a three-layer dream instead of the normal two.
The film is certainly complicated, but because I knew it was confusing I paid more attention to it than I have for any film in recent memory. As a result I understood what was going on and had a great time. Inception is the combination of a movie you have to think about and a action-packed heist movie. While I wasn't nit-picking, I didn't see any obvious inconsistencies. I only found one part to be to contrived. Normally, if a person dies in a dream they wake up. However, because of the high sedation needed to complete the "inception", any death in this three-layered dream could result in a "limbo" state where the dead spy can't wake up. I hardly cared given all the other well thought out sequences. One particular turn I liked was how the subject, Robert Michael Fischer (Cillian Murphy), had his mind prepped against such espionage, so that when the team entered it was attacked.
DiCaprio is great and I loved Joseph Gordon-Levitt because he's all grown up and even has a zero-gravity fight scene. Dom and Arthur can't do it alone though, and the cast they assemble adds a great deal to the movie. Tom Hardy is devilish as Eames the forger. Ken Watanabe is solid as Mr. Saito as is Ellen Page as Ariadne. Dileep Rao was interesting as the chemist Yusuf.
The special effects, especially the dream scenery, was amazing. I'll note again that Joseph Gordon-Levitt's fight scene was awesome, and probably got a bump in my mind because I kept thinking of him as Tommy from 3rd Rock from the Sun. |