The most fun I've had in the theater in a while

Rating: 10/10 (19 July 2010)

Loved it. Too much of the criticism aimed at this film focuses on what it is not, which is a drama with complex characters. No, it doesn't flesh out any character besides DiCaprio's (and even his backstory seems to work more as plot than as an emotional core), but instead relies on its stars' personalities to quickly establish who they are without deeply exploring them. What the film is is a sci-fi thriller with elements of a heist picture, and it excels at what it does. Leonardo DiCaprio, along with partner Joseph Gordon-Levitt, play a couple of "thieves" who specialize in stealing corporate secrets from their victims' dreams. One of their victims, Ken Watanabe, comes back to hire them to invade a competitor's dreams and implant an idea (a process known as inception, a concept many in the dream-invading field think is not possible, though DiCaprio knows it is). This introduces the heist element, where DiCaprio and Gordon-Levitt go around the world recruiting the best specialists to help them perform this difficult task (this is where Ellen Page, Tom Hardy and Dileep Rao come in). The six of them (including Watanabe) then set out to invade Cillian Murphy's dreams, which they can only do at the third level down (i.e., the dream within a dream within a dream). At this point, the film becomes sort of a maze with the group of characters dealing with four different levels of the dreamworld, each of which works on a different timescale. They discover Murphy has been trained to combat dream invaders (apparently a pretty well known threat in the movie's world), which takes the form of tons of faceless thugs coming after the dream team in each level of dream. Also threatening their mission is Marion Cotillard, a dream ghost from DiCaprio's past who always threatens to wreck his mind invasions. It seems more complicated than it is at first, but Nolan does a great job (despite occasionally relying too much on expository dialog) explaining how it all works. The film itself isn't exactly "deep", but it's an intriguing and gripping experience. It's a rare experience to have this much fun in the theater. I think it only happens a few times in a decade.