Overall a very good film, some minor problems and many unexplored ideas

Rating: 10/10 (17 July 2010)

Overall, the film was excellent - the storyline with Cobb's wife was handled particularly well.
There were some minor issues though, primarily, why weren't they in freefall at the start of level 3 (in the snow), since the freefall in level 1 caused them to be in freefall in level 2 and yet this didn't carry on through to level 3. This could have been due to the time delay between the dreams, but all the other effects occurred simultaneously and it caused the avalanche so that didn't really make sense to me. What makes this particularly disappointing is that it could be easily then 'fixed' by Arthur putting them in the elevator to create artificial gravity - I think it would have been a good addition to the film and highlighted the dependence they had on each other.
When Cobb returned to the older Saito, I was expecting that to go as the start of the film did, in a Twelve Monkey-style twist where the entire film was all in Cobb's mind as he became insane in limbo. I'm glad they avoided the clichÃ©d ending here though.
Reading other reviews on the internet, I have found some very interesting ideas, such as the children's faces being Cobb's real totem (and the spintop being his wife's) and so when he saw his children he knew he was not in someone else's dream (though he could still be in his own).
I'm also surprised they didn't play with the idea of Cobb just being a projection in someone else's dream and so not really existing at all and the dream being his reality in a Blade Runner-esquire twist. I think that this may have been a more interesting ending though I'm not sure how to implement it subtly.
Overall an excellent film, though there were so many unexplored ideas. I think a sequel could work well if they handle it carefully.