I'm sorry to say this is not as 'great' a film as they think

Rating: 8/10 (17 July 2010)

But it's got its heart in the right place. First it's too long by at least a half-hour. Second it relies too much on frenetic activity to cover up its more grievous shortfalls. And third it's not really sci-fi, it's more a psychological thriller. But despite all that it is what it is portraying, an attempt to implant a notion, and that's highly commendable on several levels. Also a few of the scenes are both memorable and essentially flawless.
The acting's all there too despite what some critics claim. DiCaprio is capable and fully invested. Joseph Gordon-Levitt's performance is especially engaging, but the casting of Ellen Page was a near fatal mistake if you ask me. I can see why she made sense to the director and producers, but she's a drag on the movie as is Ken Watanabe who I could barely understand half the time. Still I like his acting and I can tolerate his pronunciation here. Page I don't like for some reason. Perhaps it's just too distracting and/or annoying to see her exude an almost pre-adolescent lack of experience again. If they needed an 'innocent', and I don't really agree, I would have preferred Dakota Fanning. Marion Cotillard does the exact opposite, she's worldly and knowing, but her I'd like to protect and get to know personally.
I would have liked to see a slower more moody treatment of this topic. Though at least one of the chase scenes is masterful and hair-raising, the real pay dirt would have been imagining trying to enter another person's mind. In fact the separation between our minds is the bedrock on which most of our problems lay. A 'shared dream' as portrayed here would have been several notches more paradigm breaking than depicted here, I think, and that's no small flaw in this film.