Great movie

Rating: 9/10 (16 July 2010)

Christopher Nolan's latest venture, Inception, is everything Hollywood needs: human story, cool special effects, and an original idea. The movie works on so many levels it cannot help but be entertaining. Cobb (Leonardo DeCaprio) is a thief. However, he does not steal jewelry, bonds, money or cars, but ideas. He does this by visiting the dream scape of his victims. It has to be done in a clever way because some people are aware of this type of crime. Not only are there natural defenses in our dreams, but trained ones as well. His team is made an offer, though. The offer comes from Sato (Ken Watanabe) who wishes to do the opposite: he wants to plant an idea in a rival competitor, played by Cillian Murphy. Now Cobb's team must invade Murphy's dream. The movie works on so many levels. In the first place, we must learn the rules. For example, someone entering a dream cannot draw attention to themselves or alter the dream from their psyche or the dreamer will catch on. The dreamer also has "memories" that act as defenses, much like White Blood Cells that fight infections. Also, five minutes in real time equals something like an hour in dream time. You can invade a dream on two levels, or have a dream within a dream. The invaders must keep some sort of physical device and hold it to memory within the dream to make sure they are dreaming. Then there is the story of relationships gone awry. In fact, we learn the dreams are ways of dealing with past traumas. Cobb must learn to deal with his own baggage. This relates to the death of his wife and the alienation from his children. Unfortunately, they manifest themselves when he tries to invade the dream of others. What I truly like about this film was the metaphysical questions that deal with guilt, love, loss, and fear. What makes all these things work so well is the even-handed direction and screenplay of Nolan that keeps our interest piqued, but at the same time does not reveal everything. It also has a very dark element without being cynical or depressing. Instead, there is redemption. Nolan keeps getting better without falling backwards like M. Night Shymalan has done over the last half-decade. This is equally true in his writing as well as his directing. He is truly the best director out there at this time.