Epic Would Be an Understatement

Rating: 10/10 (29 July 2010)

I have now seen Inception three times. That's right, three times. The only other film that I have seen three times in theaters was M. Night Shyamalan's Lady in the Water. Why I saw that film three times in the theater is a question that I will never know the answer to. At least with Inception, I had a good reason for seeing it three times in theaters. Inception is no doubt the best film of the year and possibly the best film of the twenty-first century. Yeah, it's that good. Inception is smart, entertaining, thrilling, and just plain brilliant.
The director of the film, Christopher Nolan, has not made a bad film to date. His most notable films would be the infamous The Dark Knight, the challenging Memento, and the fun The Prestige. With his new film Inception, he has made his best work to date.
If you haven't seen the film yet you are probably confused as to what the film is about being that the various trailers and movie posters give no clues as to what the plot of the film is. Since I have seen the film three times I am pretty clear on the plot of the film so I will give you a spoiler-free description.
The film stars Leo DiCaprio and Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Cobb and Arthur, two men who are hired by people to steal secrets from people's dreams, which is called extraction. When their mission to steal the secrets from a man named Saito (played by Ken Watanabe) fails, Cobb is afraid that he will never get to see his children again and that his charges will never be cleared. Fortunately Saito decides that instead of killing Arthur and Cobb, he offers them a job but instead of extraction, he wants inception. Inception is essentially the exact of opposite extraction: instead of stealing an idea from someone's dream, you plant and idea in someone's dream. Cillian Murphy plays the guy who is the target for inception, named Robert Fischer. His dad is the head of a major corporation and is on his death bed so that when he dies, Robert Fischer will be the head honcho. Saito wants Cobb to the plant the idea that Fischer should split up his father's company so that Saito's empire will rise to power. Cobb and Arthur decide to accept the mission and begin to assemble their team. Their new team members are Ariadne (Ellen Page), Eames (Tom Hardy), and Yusuf (Dileep Rao). It seems like everything is going to go according to plan if it were not for Cobb's dead wife, Mal (Marion Cotillard) who keeps appearing in his dreams. The rest of the film is their attempt at accomplishing their mission.
Everything about this film is perfect. I will start with the acting. Every performance in this film is very good but there are three that stand out. The first is Ellen Page's performance as Ariadne. She plays someone who is new to the idea of dreaming and creation and it is because of that that the audience can relate to her. Like her the audience is new to this idea of going inside dreams in this sort of way and Page's performance exemplifies the idea of bewilderment. Marion Cotillard is also extremely good as Cobb's wife. Her character is very haunting and beautiful at the same time and it was just a very enchanting performance. The third performance that stood out for me was Cillian Murphy's performance as Fischer. His character is basically being manipulated into creating an emotional catharsis with his dad but his performance is very real and very strong.
The other things that make this film great are the special effects and the action sequences. The effects in this movie are really great because they look so real. My favorite effects sequences would have to be when the city of Paris folds on top of itself. The action sequences in the movie are just incredible. There is one scene in particular that involves a rotating hallway that is definitely one of the best fight scenes of all time.
If you have not gotten the chance to see Inception you need to get off you computer or whatever device you are using to read this and go see it now! It's an amazing, intelligent, brilliant masterpiece.