Totally novel story, I found that it took me several viewings to gain a good grasp of it.

Rating: Null/10 (20 August 2012)

Not all of us viewers are alike, in what we enjoy. Many like to see a movie once, maybe take a few calls or texts during its running time, and never feel like they miss anything. And, when it is over, they are happy with the experience. There is absolutely nothing wrong with that type of movie-watching.
However, that type will not do well with "Inception." This movie is more for those of us who like to watch every bit of every scene, hear every word of dialog, and try to piece together a fairly complex story. Some can watch 'Inception' through just once and get everything, and I applaud them for that. But I needed to see it maybe four times, over an almost two year period, to appreciate fully how good it is.
Leonardo DiCaprio is in the lead role as Cobb, he has become an expert in "extraction", the surely illegal activity of going into dreams with others and in the process extract some secret or other information. A good use for such a talent is industrial and business espionage.
But Cobb has a new client that approaches him for the opposite task, the insertion of an idea into the target's mind, and in this case make the subject think it was his own idea. That is the process they call "Inception."
The idea for the story and resultant film was an approximate 10-year process for the writer/director Nolan. Much of the details are derived from his own dream experiences, such as what may seem like a day or week in a dream might be just a fraction of a minute in real time, and a familiar sound or loss of equilibrium might bring you out of your dream.
The client that hires Cobb is Ken Watanabe as Saito. The subject is Cillian Murphy as Robert Fischer, whose industrialist father is about to die, and if the company is not forced to break into smaller units they will monopolize their market. The task is to, through inception, convince Robert that breaking the now his company into smaller units is his idea. To do that is a very complex task, and requires meticulous planning and several levels of dreams. All does not go as planned, unexpected assassins tail them, and all this provides for the drama and action.
Another layer of intrigue is added by Cobb's situation, where his wife had died some time before but he was blamed, and as a result he has not been able to travel back to his home and children in the USA. He still sees her, in dreams, often when he doesn't really want to, while she tries to convince him they are not really in a dream, but real.
Cobb's team members include Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Arthur, Ellen Page as Ariadne, Tom Hardy as Eames, and Dileep Rao as the chemist for the sedative drugs, Yusuf.His wife is Marion Cotillard as Mal.
I like this movie a lot, there is so much in it that I see many 'new' things each time. I look forward to seeing it again several times, maybe 6 to 12 months between viewings. I have it on Blu-ray and the video and audio are just state-of-the-art. A real joy to watch this movie.