Inception: Can Nolan make a bad movie?

Rating: 10/10 (16 July 2010)

I'll try to keep this as spoiler free as possible but no guarantees.
Inception is pretty much a heist movie. It is about Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) having to complete one last job the supposedly impossible Inception, which involves having to delve deep in to somebody's mind and plant an idea to help convince the mark (Cillian Murphy), that he thought of this idea by himself. He is given this task by Saito (Ken Watanabe) to basically destroy the competition. He is told to assemble his team which consists of Arthur (Joseph Gorden-Levitt) Cobb's friend and Point Man he has to make sure everything sounds right and goes to plan during the heist, Ariadne (Ellen Page), a student and the Architect of the group she has to design the maze in subconscious mind in which the group go into, Eames (Tom Hardy), The Forger he can impersonate any person inside the Mark's mind, Yusuf (Dileep Rao), The Chemist he creates the sedatives used in the dream and Saito himself.
Whilst in these dream states we learn that Cobb is haunted by visions of someone he knew called Mal (Marion Cotillard) who begins to cause trouble as they delve deeper in to the Mark's subconscious.
Christopher Nolan has created yet another brilliant movie going back to his mind-bending roots like his second film Memento. Basically Memento + The Prestige x The Dark Knight = Inception. Anyone who goes in to there cinema thinking this will just only be a visual feast (which it is) and nothing more will get more than they bargained for. Well because shock horror, it is actually a summer blockbuster with a well thought out and intriguing story, with a very good pay off with a teasing final scene that will split up audience views and will cause you to wonder about for the next few days.
Some people may need two or three showings to understand it entirely but some may also get it on the first showing.
The action scenes in this film is brilliant as well as stunning. There are some moments that are literally jaw dropping there is about 40 minutes of pure non-stop action which includes (and warning spoilers) a car chase, zero gravity fight scene and a snowy mountain top with a large number of explosions going on at once in different layers of one persons subconscious. It is at this point where it may become confusing because 1 minute in the real world is 5 minutes in the first layer which is 1 hour in the second which is one year in the third then so on. It is then when the becomes a race against time and becomes even more brilliant entertainment and mind bending fun.
(spoiler finished) the acting in this film is overall great no-one puts a foot wrong. DiCaprio is brilliant as Cobb he really gets to the emotional core of the character, Gordon-Levitt is very good as Arthur, Hardy is is also brilliant as wise guy bad ass Eames, Page is good as Ariadne she possibly has the most important role as she experiences the dream world like the audience does, Watanabe is also good as Saito although the accent maybe a bit hard to understand to some, Murphy is very good in this giving what could be a very one dimensional character some depth and emotion, Cotillard is also brilliant as the person from Dom's dark past and Dileep Rao, Tom Berenger and Michael Caine do well with there minor roles.
The effects in this film are equally brilliant, all the amazing shots from the streets of Paris exploding, to a crumbling cliff side are all an absolute joy to watch especially on IMAX. It was good to sit there and know that hardly any of this film was filmed with CGI.
Hans Zimmer yet again provides a very powerful score which at times is very fast paced and at others very emotional and totally fits the tone of whats on screen. Cinematogrepher Wally Pfister also does another fine job.
Overall, the best film of 2010 and will be very hard to beat and hopefully will get a few nominations at the Oscars and hopefully Nolan will get the Oscar he deserves and has deserved for many years. It also has a good chance at getting best picture in my opinion. See this while you can as it should be seen on the big screen. It is a true Nolan Masterpiece.
10/10