If Enough People Say It Enough Times....

Rating: 1/10 (30 March 2014)

...then perception becomes reality, I guess.
BUT, I would like to throw my vote in with those whose brains continued to function beyond the slick promotions for this film, beyond the hype-machine that this film managed to become, beyond the silly "word of mouth" that the awestruck, dumbstruck numb-skulls of social media spewed forth.
This movie was, first and foremost, B-O-R-I-N-G. Nothing, not one single thing, was ever at stake or in danger of being lost. This is not a movie about some depressed guy's journey toward redemption or retirement or whatever - it's about corporate espionage, first and foremost. That always gives ME the shivers! zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz And no, Leo's consciousness or sanity or whatever was never really in danger. Nope. Sure, he was still in the dream. No, you shouldn't care. It doesn't matter. Why? It was a dream. A dream. JUST a dream.
That leads me to my second point: if there is this amazing technology that (1) lets people consciously dive in and share a mutual dream, and (2) lets there be so much control that it can even be designed in minutest detail, then (3) Leo won't stay trapped in his dream because you can always design a way to go in and drag him back out.
The magical mutual dream device is so patently absurd that there isn't even a single second's attempt to explain it - it just is what it is. We're supposed to accept it at face value. That's the director leading us down the road to accepting Leo's fate at face value, too. It's a classic trick of narrative conditioning.
Anyway, just for the sake of argument, what if they couldn't design him back out of the dream? What's the deal with the totem? That thing was an arbitrary failsafe. Why is it the *only* failsafe? Are we really expected to buy that? When something as important as your consciousness on the line? There's no backup plan for figuring out what state you're in? Whaaaaaaaaat???
But, back to my main point: B-0-R-I-N-G.
And why didn't they shoot the wife every single time she showed up? Are you kidding me? If they would've done that, I might have stayed interested and been willing to swallow the rest. Leo has to deal with the pain of loss over and over because his teammates have brains and balls and cap that lady before she can do her damage, and Leo goes all Jack Nicholson by the end. THAT would've been something to see.
This movie, though, was not something to see.
If you do want to see real 9 out of 10 stars movie about dreams, go watch Paprika (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0851578/), which of course doesn't get 9/10 on this site. But every vote counts!!