Inception (2010)

Leonardo, I used to love your movies—What’s Eating Gilbert Grape, Basketball Diaries, Romeo + Julie. I even liked The Beach. That lame overhyped Titanic bugged me, as did Gangs of New York. You are a tease when you gift us with Catch Me If You Can. I loved you in The Departed and Revolutionary Road, but got my money back at Shutter Island (can’t blame you entirely; there were technical difficulties that stopped the movie prematurely). When I first saw previews for Inception with the exploding debris shards flying 360 in slow motion, I was curious. I sat in the theater, opening weekend, watching you guide young, fresh-faced Juno (Ellen Page) through the onion layers of your character’s theft plan and I liked you again.

Cobb (Dicaprio) and Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) work as a team to get inside the deepest crevasses in people’s brains to steal and plant ideas. Ideas that could crumble multi-million dollar organizations. If possible, it’s brilliant. Cobb insists it’s possible because he’s actually carried out the complex procedure, but can he convince a crew to sign on and play a successful part in his scheme? For his coup d'état, he hires crème de la crème co-conspirators. Inception is best watched with little knowledge of the storyline; the less you know, the better. Go in with just this: The team must break into the mind of Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy) and sideline and replace his father’s last words so he will change the direction of the company he inherited. In the process, dimensions are turned sideways, cars crash, buildings explode and Juno holds her own against an impressive cast of A-listers.

Keeping track of all the layers of consciousness and complexities is confusing the deeper you get but the visuals get more enticing. At nearly three hours, you will finish with a sore bottom and a mind full of kaleidoscopic explosions of colors, shapes and sounds. I liked it. Can’t say I understood it all but when a Hollywood movie dedicates so much time to psychology in a plot, it’s much more attractive. Definitely one to see in the theater, but best experienced at IMAX.

Writer/Director: Christopher Nolan

Country: US

Genre: Drama

Run time: 148 minutes

Scale: 3.5