Inception: The Beginning of Pure Originality

Rating: 10/10 (20 February 2014)

When we enter a maze, a feeling of faintheartedness seems to fall upon us. Unsure of the road ahead, we yearn for some sort of guidance to help us find our way. Though exploring the elaborate twists and turns is exciting, we need a source of stability and comfort in reassuring us that we will eventually reach the end.
As the creator of Inception, Christopher Nolan, provides us (the viewers) with exactly this. He flawlessly navigates us through the intricate plot of the story in such a fashion that leaves us feeling both victorious in our successful journey and baffled by the originality of the piece.
Inception tells the story of a fugitive thief, Dom Cobb, who has the extraordinary ability to extract valuable information from the subconscious mind when it is the most vulnerable, during the dream state. When presented the opportunity to do the exact opposite, he cannot resist. Now, instead of stealing an idea, he must plant an entirely new one into the mind of a powerful corporate owner. In return, he will be granted the freedom to safely return home and reunite with his children. With a perfectly assembled team, success seems surely within grasp. But something buried deep within Cobb's subconscious mind, generated by a lovers guilt and grief, may stop him from getting back to the one thing he loves the most, his children.
Leonardo DiCaprio does a phenomenal job capturing the various layers of Cobb by portraying his intelligence and leadership alongside the underlying traces of mental instability and insanity. Leonardo's expressions have always been about the eyebrows. With these, it is easy for him to go from the sweet, sophisticated,party host in The Great Gatsby, to the livid, hot-headed, bootlegger who looked as though might have killed a man. The weary look Leo displays so well for us in this movie forces us to sympathize with his sorrow and further understand his struggles.
But the most interesting role in this story is Cobb's deceased wife, Mal, who killed herself because she had mistaken reality with a dream. Marion Cotillard's performance as this character is absolutely explicable. As she taunts Cobb, shaking her head, yelling, and grasping the bars that contain her in his subconscious jail, she also has this look as if any minute she will burst into tears and break down completely. Throughout the movie, you don't know whether to feel sorry for this woman who is so madly in love with her husband, or frightened by the same woman who is trying to kill him.
Unlike many movies from the same sci-fi genre that base their plot around the existence of supernatural aliens, robots, and time travel, Inception brings to the table an entirely new idea: dream vs. reality. If we are capable of creating our dreams, so life-like and incorporated by our own personal experiences and emotions, could it be possible that we might mistake our dreams for reality. And if we do, how would we ever escape from such an elusive persuasion?
While wandering through these new ideas, the viewer is simultaneously being put through a world of intense battle and thrill. Car chases, gun fights, and other action scenes have you up on the edge of your seat, awaiting the victory of your beloved characters' fight to uncover the secrets within the dreams.
Inception, with all of its excitement and adventure, will initiate the production of more thought provoking movies like it. Moviegoers will now experience the same level of creativity and originality, instead of being bombarded with predictable story plots. Gone is the day of simplistic movies that leave us with nothing but a slight chuckle or scare.