Good, but not *that* good.

Rating: 7/10 (17 December 2010)

I rarely write reviews here because I think that in general there are a bunch of people out there doing a very good job and I am not sure I have something to add. So I was amazed when I started reading the reviews for "Inception". Comparing Nolan with Stanley Kubrick, Andrei Tarkovsky and Alfred Hitchcock? C'mon! And a solid stream of 10/10s for a movie that is admittedly very innovative, but misses the mark in several key places? What? Then I changed the sorting to "prolific reviewers" and then I saw it. People who watch and review a lot of films have a much more nuanced and diverse set of views about this film, which is what you would expect for a movie that genuinely tried to do something different. Obviously the marketing budget for this film extended to a big effort to pervert the integrity of IMDb.
And my view on the film? Acting - great! CGI and general cinematography - excellent. Soundscape - better than average. General ability of a thriller's storyline to create and build tension and then release it quickly at the end - tick! Where this movie failed for me is in the storyline. Nolan should have spent another ten years on this one, because it fails to work on many, many levels. For a start, I didn't recognise many of the real qualities of dreams in the dream sequences. Not convincing from that point of view. Second, there are holes in the plot line you could drive a truck through, and for this kind of film I expect the storyline to be very, very tight and stand up to multiple viewings.
This film is a worthy offering in the line of "Memento" and "Mulholland Drive", but Nolan didn't quite pull this one off and it cannot be rated in the same class as those two movies.
For heaven's sake don't let this review stop you from watching this film. 7/10 from me means that it is definitely worth paying real money to go and see, and it is one of the better movies of 2010, make no mistake about that. It's also a thriller that keeps you thinking throughout, and that is uncommon in a summer blockbuster.