A carefully constructed maze...genius.

Rating: 10/10 (20 November 2011)

Not since The Matrix has a blockbuster blown audiences' minds like this film. The plot, storyline, dialogue, cast, special effects, score/soundtrack, and cinematography are nothing short of amazing. This is the movie in which Gordon-Levitt went from promising young actor to bona fide star; his spinning hallway fight scene was truly awesome, and he did it himself (not a stuntman). Page went from cute and clever girl to confident, intelligent, and sexy young lady. DiCaprio was truly outstanding, as usual. Tom Hardy was smooth, precise, and imposinghe could be the next Bond; can't wait to see him play Bane in The Dark Knight Rises. Watanabe exuded confidence as a corporate general who practiced the art of war by a strict code of discipline and honor. Cillian Murphy convincingly wore years of rejection from his father on his face. And Marion Cotillard was a passionate, desperate, angry, scary, vulnerable, loving, confused, helpless, and pretty human wraith all at the same time. Well done.
I rated it a Theater movie because I went to see it in the theater twice. It's poetic that the recurring theme throughout this movie is mazes & puzzlesand this movie is one big puzzle itselfit's a puzzle that the characters must navigate, but also one that the viewer must solve in order to fully understand. After watching the film once, I was dumbfounded by what I had just seenit was so creative, so different, so complex, that I wasn't sure if it all made sense, but I loved the ride. The second time through, I tried to solve the puzzle, but it seemed as if some pieces still weren't fitting right. At that point, it seemed to me that Nolan simply had not closed some loops. I started to feel that maybe Matt Stone and Trey Parker were right when they created that South Park episode suggesting that this movie was not as smart as it pretended to beI thought that maybe the extremely intelligent puzzle posed by the film was really just a paradox, like Penrose stairs, created to distract the viewers for a finite amount of time while the producers took their money and left them dazzled by great special effects and an all-star cast (sound familiar?). But, like many a good puzzle, you walk away from it for a while, come back to it, and the answer you were looking for was right there, in plain sight. By the third time I watched this movie, I was satisfied that Nolan had not cut across the lines to solve his own carefully constructed mazeno, this maze was a masterpieceone of my favorite all-time movies ever.