The ecstatic reception shows just how thin the current movie crop is...

Rating: 8/10 (29 July 2010)

A lot of how a movie gets received is about context. Inception had the good fortune to be made in an era dominated by mediocre remakes of comic-book fare, and I suspect it's that context that's produced a lot of the "best movie ever" hype, which is indeed overblown.
But it's certainly a ripping good summer blockbuster. And I have to disagree with some of the common gripes in the negative reviews that appear here. In particular:
1. "Lack of character development / 'miscasting' ": The movie's focus is on two characters, the seasoned, world-weary and desperate Dom Cobb (DiCaprio), and the precociously talented young prodigy Ariadne (Page). Their relationship is the core of the film. It works, and everyone else fills out their more limited roles with confidence.
2. "Too much exposition": I'm skeptical of exaggerated contempt for exposition. People do occasionally explain things to each other in real life, and I'm happy to have some explanations in (what is superficially a) heist movie that's going to revolve around exponentially multiplied frames of dream time. Page's presence as the precocious neophyte made this device un-forced and reasonably workable.
3. "Not dreamlike enough": The foundational concept of the film is obviously LUCID dreaming wherein the participants know they're in a dream, which is more directed and less random than normal dreaming. It wouldn't have made sense for them to use this concept and then make the results as random and cryptic as a regular dream.
4. "There's nothing at stake": The thing about Inception is that, while it's superficially about a dream heist, it's fairly obvious early on that this isn't the real conflict. The real central conflict -- which is initially disguised as a subplot -- is about a man trying to come to terms with the loss of his wife and his role in her death. Likewise, while it's full of the kind of James Bond-ish action men dream of -- the level with the winter fortress deliberately echoes Bond flicks for a reason -- the action sequences aren't the real action, they aren't the point. The puzzle-solving is. (Indeed, the action is made deliberately ornamental to accentuate this.) In other words it's a profoundly personal and emotional story, disguised in the bombast of an Ian Fleming yarn. I like this about it, especially because the actress portrayed "Mal," the shade of Dom's ex-wife, is spot on and brings out the tragedy and insanity of this story. Your mileage may vary.
5. " 'It's all a dream' cop-out": Actually, Inception is the rare sort of film that leaves open multiple readings that are equally interesting and satisfying. On one of these readings, it's made pretty clear what's a dream and what isn't. However, there are dropped hints of a more complicated reading which can open much of the film's larger 'reality' to the charge of being a dream (like the curiously nightmare-like and illogical qualities of Dom's exile and persecution, or the way the mooks in a chase scene in Mombasa are eerily similar to the largely-interchangeable "projections" in the dream worlds). If the movie was really about the heist, this would indeed be a cop-out. But because it's a personal story about the psyche of the main character, this is one of the rare cases where the "it's all a dream" option actually ADDS meaning and poignancy.
6. "Too long": Well, yeah, maybe a touch. But on the other hand... there really isn't that much I would want to cut.
On balance: I'm not about to proclaim Inception a masterpiece or the greatest film ever made. But I liked it, it was worth a trip to the cinema, and I think some people are trying a little too hard to be contrarian.