See it for the intrigue, the effects and the incomparable dynamics of Cotillard, Di Caprio and all the others.

Rating: 8/10 (13 August 2010)

Christopher Nolan's ambitious latest project Inception has bravely arrived on the back of his hugely successful previous project 'The Dark Knight' (2008) sensationally undeterred by the ensuing sky-high expectations, but perhaps its timing isn't quite as troublesome as one might think. Dark Knight was ultimately the typical superhero mélange single-handedly heaved to greatness by a mind-blowing Heath Ledger who nobody else could keep up with, in more ways than one: it was a vehicle for an exceptional talent rather than a legendary masterpiece in itself; whereas Inception has all senses engaged and all aspects finely tuned.
The lush smorgasbord of rich themes infinitely beguiling concepts – dreams, memory, thoughts and feelings and other psychological notions – provide a highly engaging premise for a film that is unlike any other. Of course, as in all big-budget blockbusters, larger than life action sequences abound like huge flashy bedazzling numbers in a musical. Also like the songs in a tuneful stage show, a few of them are unwelcome, and many of the later climactic displays of spectacle are painfully long for the audience's attention span: but slackening the pace in this manner is mostly beneficial, giving us time to contemplate and comprehend the great jigsaw puzzle that is the plot.
Amidst the surreal swirl of slightly sci-fi-esquire ideas, a handful of pleasingly memorable characters shape a respectably well-conceived story. Leonardo Di Caprio stars as Agent Cobb, a world-weary and suspiciously enigmatic man who is desperate to complete a job in order to go home to his dearly missed children; the job falls into place in the category of the strangest kind of espionage: dream invasion. The reason for his puzzling particularly secretive nature appears to be connected to his eerily mysterious late wife Mal (a stunningly disturbing Marion Cotillard) whose ghostly memory makes recurring appearances in the dreams he enters. Di Caprio is joined by a splendid ensemble of mostly unrecognised actors – most notably Ellen Page, Tom Hardy and Joseph Gordon-Levitt – who play his trusted colleagues in this rather insane endeavour.
See it for the intrigue, the effects and the incomparable dynamics of Cotillard, Di Caprio and all the others.