Does for dreams what Back to the Future did for time

Rating: 10/10 (16 July 2010)

To begin, I want to make it absolutely clear no matter what you read in the following article, go and see Inception.
Christopher Nolan has been polluting the airwaves for over 10 years now with fantastic movies such as 'The Dark Knight' for action fans, 'Insomnia' for fans of psychological thrillers, and 'Memento' for those who like to think about a movie, a lot. But then steps forward Inception, Nolan's true masterpiece. It's nothing less than perfect. Like a combination of all his life's work, like everything up to this point have been mere obstacles he had to manoeuvre in order to make this fantastic piece of work.
The plot is so difficult to explain that it would take an entire page just to make a dent, so lets say there's a man called Cobb (Leo DiCaprio) who steals things, he's a thief. Now lets say he can some how go into people's dreams and there thoughts. But in order to make a more engrossing and action packed story, lets say this time, he has to plant an idea. That's the very basics of what can only be described as, the most complicated, but monumentally brilliant story every created. The entire mythology Nolan has created around the dreamscape can only be compared to what other film makers did with the rules of time and space. The amazing amounts of thought and creativity that has gone into every little detail is incredible on it's own, but when you plan to make a movie based AROUND this idea, not ABOUT it, then you cross the border into pure Godliness.
The only flaw that you can possibly spot within this labyrinth of a movie is however, the characters and their complete lack of story and depth. All apart from the main character, Cobb, they share equal amounts of restricted screen time as Nolan rightfully realised that in order to harness the story's true power, you need to focus on the story itself, rather than split it off into tangents every 5 seconds. Characters such as Ellen Page's curious architecture student Ariadne and Tom Hardy's truly magnificent Eames are used merely as pawns by Nolan to tell this epic and infatuating tale of sub-conscious dreaming, and so, they receive very little to no back story what so ever, leaving us the audience to work this out for ourselves. A very ballsy but spot on move from Nolan as we do start to generate feelings for these bare-bones projections and any back stories apart from Cobb's (which is the key to the entire plot) would have crippled the excitingly fast pace of the movie.
There's barely a moment in the entire 148 minutes when something wasn't being explained or dreams weren't being explored meaning Incepion is a movie you have to keep both eyes on at all times. Miss one thing, even a little tiny explanation of a very small section of the dreamscape, and you could end up completely lost. It is because of this (the incredibly engaging plot) that when the credits roll and you are now forced the peel your eyes from the screen, the previous 148 minutes seems so real and so engaging, that the movie in itself felt like a dream. And an outstanding one at that.
Inception manages to make Nolan's previous work look like a children's cartoon as far as complexity is concerned and acting-wise, it's pretty much on the same level. DiCaprio's leading performance is a very emotionally aware and painfully focused one and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy and Cillian Murphy all put in fantastic performances also, but the fact is, they didn't have to. Their believable acting is just another satisfying tick on the clipboard, not a requirement as the story takes over the entire audience's attention. Sure if they had been really bad it would be noticeable, but they could have portrayed their roles in a more Hollywood-style fashion and nobody would have realised. It is for this reason that I believe the actors are the hidden gem of this complicated maze of a picture.
To conclude, Inception may be the most complex and engaging films you see all year, and if you focus purely on the movie itself and don't get distracted, it should be the best too. To me, Inception is Nolan's masterpiece and serves as a much needed kick-up-the-arse to the likes of Michael Bay and Roland Emmerich. This is how you make a movie boys... start taking notes!
10/10