One of the Great Modern Spectacles

Rating: 10/10 (9 February 2016)

Leonardo DiCaprio is the last big movie star left in the world. There may be one or two others who can still bring in big crowds, but so what. Being a movie star is about projecting an image. Bogart did that. Dean did that. Brando did that. And so does DiCaprio.
Christopher Nolan is the last big auteur left in the world. No one else can get $150 million original projects off the ground, and no one else can make $150 million projects that are creative and deep and dynamic and appealing to the modern audience. He is our heir to Kubrick and Hitchcock.
So it makes sense that these two team up and make a movie together. And it makes sense that said movie would be one of the greatest pieces of art of the new millennium.
Inception is a movie, but it is far more than that. It is an experience that involves all parts of your mind. There isn't another film that is both this exciting, this interesting, and this intellectually pleasing. It reminds me of the first time I ever heard Beethoven's Ninth or Vivaldi's The Four Seasons.
DiCaprio plays a dream thief. He and his team go into people's heads while they're asleep and steal their memories, such as codes to safes. But a powerful businessman, Saito, offers him a new challenge: inception. He must plant a thought inside the heir to a business fortune and make him believe that he came up with it naturally.
As the film puts it: Arthur: "I say to you, 'Don't think about elephants.' What are you thinking about?" Saito: "Elephants." Arthur: "Right, but it's not your idea. The dreamer can always remember the genesis of the idea. True inspiration is impossible to fake." Despite what Arthur believes at first, inception is not impossible. But it is difficult. Only one man has ever done it before: DiCaprio's character, Cobb. But he never wants to do it again. At first, Saito is put back, but then he makes Cobb an offer he can't refuse. What is this offer? A chance to see his kids again and live in peace. He has been on the run ever since he was accused of killing his wife Mal.
The genius of this film lies in how it dives into Cobb's psyche as he and his team dives into the heir's mind. This pays off time after time, none more so than when the atmosphere gets claustrophobic. It's like eating two decadent cakes stacked on top of each other. If this was done for its own sake, it would be effective but superfluous. But it's not; all the threads come together perfectly.
The cast is incredible. Other than DiCaprio, we have Michael Caine, Tom Hardy, and two of my favorite young stars, Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I wouldn't say any of them turn in the best performance of their careers, but they are all very good, especially Page, whom I actually connect with more here than I did in Juno.
In any case, this is the best movie most of them will ever be in. And it just gives me a certain fanboyish sort of glee to see some of the best actors alive in one of the best movies of the decade made by one of the greatest living directors.
For most people who haven't seen the movie, the first thing that comes to mind when they think of it is that blaring noise they used in every trailer from 2010-2012. It originated in the trailer for this film and spread like wildfire. That got annoying quickly. But it works in this film. It is shrill and unsettling, which fits the tone of that section of the trailer perfectly. It's no 'Time', a wonderful piece you should check out if you have even a feigning interest in orchestral music. But it is good enough.
That's about how I feel about Zimmer scores in general: even at their worst, they are good enough. The closest I've ever coming to hating a Zimmer score was in Interstellar. That organ grated on me. Yes, it was narratively potent, but poor sound mixing ruined it for me. But most times, I love Zimmer scores. He's the best of the 'new', electronica-influenced composers. His scores in the Batman movies were fantastic. But he is at his best here.
Many people who went to see this movie ended up seeing it two or three times. This is partially because the summer blockbuster season was notoriously vacant, and no other good movies were out. But it is also because this movie confused a lot of people, not in the 'What did I just see?' way, but in the 'That was awesome, but I didn't completely get it, so I'm going to watch it again' kind of way.
This is not Nolan's most confusing and mindbending film- that would be Memento, which I actually and truly did not completely get until I played through it a few times- but it is the most confusing popular Nolan movie. Interstellar comes close, but that movie was more headscratchingly confusing than 'put the pieces of the story together' confusing.
For all the rampant talk about how Nolan's movies lack a heart, this movie works because of its emotional dive into Cobb's heart. Without it, this film is simply a high-concept, amazingly inventive heist film. With it, the film is one of my favorite of all time, a movie I want to break out at every occasion possible.