Spoiler Alert!!!!!!!!!!

Rating: 7/10 (4 October 2013)

Review
The movie Inception, directed by Christopher Nolan, is visually stunning and contains a very abstract storyline that makes the movie all the more enticing. In my opinion the movie is a masterpiece of visual effects and storyline as the movie grabs the viewer's attention from the very start. With that said its storyline is only a masterpiece for the expert moviegoer that watches the movie multiple times. The plot of Inception is incredibly complex and can become downright confusing to the casual viewer. All along the viewer struggles to keep up with what is going and with what Nolan is trying to convey to the audience. Nolan's idea for Inception was incredibly unique and innovative, but fails to capture on its full potential as the audience is constantly confused with the idea of entering one's dream and implanting an idea into the dream.
The movie Inception is very long and reaches just over two and a half hours, but even this is not nearly enough time to help keep the audience straight on what the whole concept of the movie is about. Nolan gives the audience no time to learn about going inside one's dream as he immediately starts the movie off inside multiple dreams at one time. He furthers this confusion in the main part of the movie by having the main characters go within a dream, within a dream, within a dream, and then within another dream. A grand total of four dreams within a dream making it almost impossible for the audience understand everything as the movie jumps from dream to dream. David Denby of the New Yorker even says that visually Inception is a "stunning- looking film that gets lost in fabulous intricacies, a movie devoted to its own workings and to little else". This perfectly sums up the movie as the visuals are great, but they are often lost as the direction of the movie is to difficult and baffling for the viewer to follow as the movie jumps from scene to scene.
Nolan's intentions are also not that clear to whether he wants the audience to be confused if the actors are in a dream or actually in reality. Many times during the movie I was trying to figure out if the main characters were in reality or actually in a dream. I understand that some of the mystique of this movie is for the viewer not to be sure what is a dream or what is reality, but that is a very fine line that can ultimately have detrimental effects towards one's enjoyment of the movie. The concept of having the viewer confused might work in short segments, but "for long stretches you're not sure whether you're in a dream or reality, which isn't nearly as much fun as Nolan imagined it to be"(Denby). Nolan creates a interesting concept of having dreams within dreams, but to a first time viewer of the movie it can be very confusing. This leaves the viewer just watching the special effects and really taking nothing from the story like Nolan
The acting of the characters also seems to be pushed aside as the concept of the movie really hinders the great cast's variety of skills. Even the characters don't seem completely convincing as they even seem to become confused with the storyline. Richard Knight of Knight at the Movies offers a great quote with "By that point the movie has become so dense with the pretzel logic that Nolan has conjured up that when Page exclaims, 'Wait a minute. Whose subconscious are we going into?!' you can't help but laugh in relief. If the characters are confused, imagine how the audience feels." Seems a little far fetched that the characters are confused, but in reality this is what the audience feels by some of the dialogue expressed by the actors in the movie. Many feel like the movie might be a little overzealous with its plot, but that in the end the audience can figure out the whole story. One strong supporter of this theory is Amy Biancolli of the Houston Chronicle who exclaims that "Even with the few people that find the concept of the movie to over the top there are many who feel like the movie is a masterpiece all around. The sum effect is convoluted, to say the least, but all those fantastical plot twists are realized with surprising clarity, persuasive logic - and elemental human pain." I find this claim hard to understand as I left the movie confused as with many other people I have asked, who claimed they lost interest in the movie because of the bizarre storyline. If one looks at money made this a great and historical success that accompanies some of the greatest films ever made. I still feel that this movie is great, but not for a one time moviegoer and that is where this movie fails as many viewer don't want to see a movie they disliked for the first time again. If seeing this movie for the first time I recommend you go in with a open mind and plan on watching it multiple times to understand all the intricacies of the movie. In the end I feel like this is a masterpiece of a movie as far as special effects go, but that Nolan missed big time on story that is so convoluted with information that it takes away from the whole experience.