Chaotic and pretentious

Rating: 4/10 (18 March 2011)

I'll begin by saying that I have an inbuilt prejudice against films that seem to put cleverness or 'intelligence' ahead of entertainment value. Having read a lot about this film, I wasn't sure whether I would like it, but in fact was very disappointed to end up disliking it as much as I did.
For me, the film lacked two essential elements of an entertaining movie - a coherent plot and sympathetic characters. The plot didn't really start to make any sense until about halfway through (far too late) and Leonardo di Caprio as the central character, Cobb, was competent but just didn't have the charisma to carry this kind of story. His wife's death was foreshadowed a lot in the early part of the film and I found I just didn't care how or why she died. None of the other characters came across as real people and their connection to Cobb was generally unclear to me. The impression was of good actors (like Tom Hardy) being basically wasted.
I almost switched off the film after the first twenty minutes because its chaotic action seemed designed almost to alienate the viewer. It started to make some sense after that, but was still a long way from what a good film should be. The over-reliance on sudden loud noises (way above the level of the dialogue) in the first half was simply irritating.
The film also seemed to have trouble obeying its own internal logic. Several reviewers have mentioned that there was no consistency in what is supposed to happen when a dreamer dies during a dream; I was unimpressed by the 'projections' in the dreams apparently having their own personalities and being capable of independent thought, although the script also had them as nothing more than figments of the dreamer's imagination.
Yes, the film's settings and special effects were impressive, but that's really not what an evening out (or in) should be about. If the story and characterisations are lacking, then why bother watching at all?