Poor sound nearly ruins this movie

Rating: 7/10 (19 July 2010)

The sound on this movie is terrible, and makes it impossible to be truly immersed in the film. The music is too loud during quiet dialog, and the actors speak in soft voices at inappropriate times. At one point, Cobb and Saito are talking under the moving blades of a helicopter, and they aren't shouting at all. Cobb and Mal are talking across a city street from the windows of their adjacent buildings, and somehow don't need to raise their voices. The Foley is completely off for most of the sound effects of the movie.
I grew up in Los Angeles, and have no trouble understanding Asian dialects. When Saito speaks, his lines are unintelligible, not because he has a strong accent, but because loud music is playing while he's speaking very softly. The theater goers seated around me were doing a great job of keeping quiet, and I still understood less than half of what this character said.
I did enjoy the film overall, but after watching movies with expertly recorded ADR and Foley work, I was constantly distracted by poor sound.