Not original, not brilliant, not worthy

Rating: Null/10 (6 December 2010)

Some reviewers have given this movie a single star where's other have rewarded it 10. There's very few in-between. I think 4 stars is apt. It's really not that bad but certainly not a "movie of the decade". Such a disparity is probably due to the overrated expectations the Hollywood movie industry and IMDb hype has created. I've heard it being compared to the Kubrick's "Space Odyssey 2001". Not surprising some film-lovers overreacted. As much as I liked "Memento", I must say Mr. Nolan ain't no Stanley Kubrick. As for the people who rated the movie as the best thing that has happened to the American cinema since "The Sixth sense", I can only enviably wish their bliss.
The biggest disappointment was probably the plot. Somewhere 45 minutes in the movie I figured the second twist was for the main character to discover it was actually him locked in the "limbo of his own dreams" (a.k.a. Hades in the world of Plato a few thousand years before the idea of our lives being mere reflections of grand "pure forms" landed on Mr. Nolan's forehead) and the rest of the gang was trying to drag him out to the light under a masterful orchestration of his beloved wife. Unfortunately this second twist never happened. The director rather awkwardly tried to pull a Lynch-style finale of letting the viewers to decide whether this entire movie was real or not. This is a hard trick to pull, since all fictional films are not real and we (the audience) are quite well aware of it. Although Mr. Lynch sometimes gets to pull it but he's, well, an actual artist. Anyways, it was about as entertaining for the next 115 minutes as watching a barrel of brandy mature.
I can't resist just one more barb to the lavish display of plot holes - many reviewers have mentioned the utter failure of the storyline to construct anything resembling a solid structure but I really hope to point out a previously overlooked nonsense (my apologies for anyone who has already done so). How is it that one of the most feared "brain hackers" who can mastermind a "cerebral heist" of all times, can't arrange for his kids to move some place safe where he can quietly meet up (or even live) with them? Or forge the documents needed to enter the country? I mean there are literally thousands of people illegally crossing the borders into the land of the free every single day and some of them can barely read English! And somehow this is a major roadblock for the man who has the power to peek into other people's brains and even plant his ideas in there. For Pete's sake! What a nonsense.
P.S.
"Once Zhuangzi dreamt he was a butterfly, a butterfly flitting and fluttering around, happy with himself and doing as he pleased. He didn't know he was Zhuangzi. Suddenly he woke up and there he was, solid and unmistakable Zhuangzi. But he didn't know if he was Zhuangzi who had dreamt he was a butterfly, or a butterfly dreaming he was Zhuangzi. Between Zhuangzi and a butterfly there must be some distinction! This is called the Transformation of Things"
4th century BCE