Good premise, but when you break it down it doesn't make much sense.

Rating: 7/10 (4 August 2010)

Inception is a good scifi action movie with a complicated plot that, at times, doesn't seem to make much sense. The Acting was great, the characters were all likable and well portrayed. The look of the film was great, the sets, special effects, action, direction ... all top notch. The premise was also quite intriguing and original. The story focuses around a group of "dream invaders" who specialize in constructing dreams for people for the purpose of stealing or implanting information and ideas from them from within the dream. At times it's hard to tell when they're in a dream or in the real world and I admit, in the beginning, the film was a bit baffling. But the viewer who pays close attention is rewarded for his attentiveness when it starts to make more sense a quarter of the way through this film.
A lot of people have compared this movie to the Matrix because it explores the idea of the "real world" verses an artificially created "dream world". And in that respect they are very similar. But whereas The Matrix focused more on a conflict between man and machine, Inception focuses on the conflict between a man and his difficulty with letting go. The true strength of this film is in its characterization. Both the protagonist, Cobb, and the antagonist, Fischer, are very well written and portrayed characters that you feel genuine empathy for, especially towards the end. But where Inception surpasses The Matrix in terms of characterization, it falls short of the Matrix in its success at making a consistent plot.
In science fiction or fantasy, it is not required to remain consistent to the laws of science, but it is required to remain consistent to ones own constructed rules. This film constructs a set of rules for itself that, when held under scrutiny, don't make much sense. Indeed, the confusing narrative often breaks its own rules in order to suit the plot. This wouldn't be so much of a problem if not for the fact that much of the tension of the film revolves around the fact that the characters' lives are in danger due to these often contradicting rules.
It is no surprise that one of the biggest complaints heard from people walking out of this film was that it was too confusing. Some may argue that these viewers did not pay close enough attention to the film, and some may even be elitist enough to assume that they were simply not intelligent enough to follow the plot. While this may be the case, I try to reserve such judgments when I can. But it cannot be denied that much of the fault lies with the plot of the film itself.
Much of the mechanics of the dream world levels and architecture are poorly explained at times, and there are fundamental contradictions with some of the rules it lays out for us. Often times we're left wondering what exactly is at stake for our characters, and why we should care whether or not they succeed. The somewhat purposefully unclear ending may account for some of these inconsistencies and on repeated viewings the mechanics may make more sense. But the lack of tension during the more climactic scenes due to the ambiguous nature of what's at stake is still a major problem with this film.
These problems aside, it is a film worth seeing probably more than once. But I think the hype machine may have given this one a little more credit than it deserves.