It is rare that I attend midnight screenings, it is more rare still that I come out of the theatre more awake than I was when I walked in.

Rating: 10/10 (16 July 2010)

I had been following Christopher Nolan's Inception from the moment it was announced that he was working on his next film following The Dark Knight. The initial teaser, debuted some time ago with it's powerful, moving score set in motion what I would call borderline fanboy-ism. The actual theatrical trailer only supplemented it. When opening week hit I began reading some initial reviews coming out of rotten tomatoes and had some notion of what I should be expecting out of the film. I tried to limit my expectations even though some extremely positive reviews were coming in.
Inception is one of those films that makes you think during it's entire plot. The setup is simple enough: Dom Cobb, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, has a very unique job. He is an extractor, a man who delves into the layers of people's minds, deep into their subconscious, to extract information; thoughts and ideas that the dreamer isn't even aware of knowing. The world Dom is a part of is not built as complete as say, Gotham City, but it also doesn't need to be, as the majority of the time the film is taking place in a dreamworld. Dom, suspected of killing his own wife Mal (Marion Cotillard), is unable to return home to his children. In order to pass immigration back to America he is forced to do one final job, one that is the opposite of extracting, rather, he is to plant an idea, an inception point, into a man's subconscious.
To do so would require more help than his usual point man Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt). He enlists the aid of Ariadne (Ellen Page), Eames (Tom Hardy), Saito (Ken Watanabe) and Yusuf (Dileep Rao) to help him create the dream. Each team member has their own jobs pertaining to the dream that they will eventually share with the dreamer Robert Fischer, played by the ever scrupulous Cillian Murphy. The supporting cast is just astounding and anything I say, if I could say anything, would be mere nitpicking. Leo himself plays his role as well as ever.
The level of cinematic brilliance that Nolan has brought forth here is so astounding that I have absolutely no negative comments to talk about. Each moment of this film as brilliant as the next. The set pieces are large in scale and are beautiful. It is no simple feat to create a world such as this but Nolan seemingly does it with relative ease. The mind is a complex thing, and this film merely supplements that idea. Bear in mind that this is no low budget film, some 200 million was put forth to form what we see as the delicate architecture of the human mind. The CGI that almost always accompanies such a budget is impeccable and is near photo realistic as it does not cast you out of the film but simply reels you in further. The pacing too is strong and I can't say it even has a dipping point after the first thirty minutes. The action sequences remind me of the Bond series, and for the better. Nolan even stated that it had a part of his inspiration and it shows. There are even some comedic bits for good measure, however discrete they are. No film that I have seen in a very long time encapsulates a perfect balance of everything that you see here.
Plainly stated, Inception is a masterpiece of this decade and only continues to firmly root Nolan among the worlds most renowned director's. I urge you to go in with your mind open, you will not be disappointed.