Very Good, but too long

Rating: 9/10 (12 December 2010)

Cobb (DiCaprio) is an Extractor, who steals industrial secrets by getting into a person's dreams and getting what he needs. But, Mr. Saito (Watanabe) hires Cobb and wants him to implant (called inception) a notion in Fischer's (Murphy) dream to have him break up his late father's company or the whole world will be held hostage to the monopoly.
Watching Inception is like looking at a Picasso painting. You are not sure what you are seeing. You see some things you like, some you don't, and much (if not all) you don't understand. But, you keep looking to see if it makes sense to you. I'll leave it there.
There is a lot of gobbley-gook explanations psychiatrists would salivate at. There are dreams, dreams within dreams, and dreams within deeper levels of dreams within dreams. See? Once you get by the gobbley-gook explanations you sit and watch the movie like you watched an old Mission Impossible TV show back in the day. You are mesmerized. You watch wires being strung, explosive charges placed, monitors placed, needles injected, lies and other rationalizations being told. See, just like an old Mission Impossible TV show, except there are also tons of gunfire and car chases which MI didn't have much of.
But, the CGI and other special effects are simply fantastic and yes, these things are perhaps things you might see in dreams because – as you well know- many things are possible in dreams where the illogical become logical. Hey, this is a dream. Anything is possible. Things that don't make sense in the real world become real within a dream and they make sense. Perfectly logical. See?
The actors become intense and so do you and you are fully engaged now once the dreams within dreams start. All is good except for one thing: the movie is too long and you are looking for the end game. If they had cut 40-minutes out, this would have been more enjoyable. But, too much shooting etc takes its toll, and, this hurts any Best Picture Oscar nomination in my view.
There is no denying that Leonardo DiCaprio raises the performances of everyone around him and this is blatantly obvious and that's a good thing. One day Hollywood will see that he and Matt Damon (not in this movie) are Oscar worthy actors. One day.
After seeing this, I know 3-things: (1) If you saw this in a movie theater, you may be encouraged to take out the DVD and watch it again fast-forwarding thru the too many shootings, car chases and explosions. And, (2) When you next see a Picasso painting you may be reminded of this movie.
And, (3) You are going to try to control what you do in your dreams. Good luck with that.
Violence: Yes. Sex: No. Nudity: No. Language: Yes, just JCs and GDIs. No F-bombs.