Inception

5 stars

A brilliant and original thrill ride.

Rating: PG
Stars: Leonardo DiCaprio, Ellen Page, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Marion Cotillard, Ken Watanabe, Cillian Murphy

What's the story?
Cobb (DiCaprio) is a skilled and highly trained extractor living mostly in a dream world. His job is to extract valuable secrets and ideas by accessing people’s minds through dream sequences. But he’s separated from his life in the real world with his family, as his job has made him a dangerous fugitive. Now he’s given one last job: To create an Inception. The task is to plant an idea instead of steal one. If he succeeds; he could get his life back, but only if he can achieve what appears to be the impossible.

Why see it?
After cult classics such as Memento and The Prestige, director Christopher Nolan delivers his best work to date: A rich and immensely thrilling film that’s as complex as it is brilliant. He’s able to captivate people’s attention and imagination, lure them into the multi-layered dream world he’s created and draw the audience into the movie both visually and emotionally. The storyline (although hard to follow) is unique, original and flawlessly structured. Nolan also manages to deliver well-choreographed action scenes, a great score composed by Has Zimmer and incredible special effects (that’s not shot from CGI). To top it off the cast all give award-winning performances and DiCaprio’s sophisticated performance suits the film’s dark and complex tone.

Problems?
Although this is a near perfect film, some will find it hard to understand whether the protagonist is in the real world or if he’s in the dream world. It also feels similar to Sci-Fi classics such as The Matrix. Finally, this film runs for 148 minutes, but viewers might not notice, thanks to the film's relatively fast pace.

All in all:
A genuinely complex and innovative classic that thrills both visually and emotionally.