A great film, greatly misunderstood.

Rating: 8/10 (17 November 2008)

It is a good film, with many people being negative, and many more guessing wildly at its meaning. I think the film is complex, but less so than many people are suggesting.
When DA signs up for the Lucid Dream, he chooses the point at which he begins the dream, and this occurs outside the nightclub. Before that part, there is no dream-sequence apart from a couple of short bits at the beginning.
As for being cryogenically frozen - well, DA is frozen once he commits suicide. He does not go into the dream state when he is frozen. He has to wait until the technology is developed (this is stated in the film). Once the technology is developed to bring humans back from a frozen/dead state (re. the small dog on the TV) - DA can be brought back to life - but, crucially - he can either be brought to life and woken up, or he can go into a Lucid Dream of his choice (which he signed up for before committing suicide), which is what DA chooses to do - the start point of his dream being the scene outside of the nightclub.
The problem is that there is a nightmare element to his dream, as he committed suicide and is convinced that he 'killed someone' - (himself) - but gets confused as he tries to figure out who he killed.
The scenes with Kurt Russel where DA is wearing the mask is certainly part of his dream - he is self-analysing to try and find out what happened (which is haunting him).
He makes the decision to wake up to the real world (which is 200 years since he was frozen - stated in the film by the Tech Guy), and jumps off the building in order to wake himself up from the Lucid Dream, which is the way he wanted to be woken up, and the way he chose to wake up when he signed up for the Lucid Dream (also stated in the film).
This is a great film, and worth watching more than once (if not just to understand it) but is visually rich, and yes, Tom Cruise (of whom I am not a great fan) does act well - he is, as yet, no great master of the art, but executes a compelling performance. And yes, the music is spot on.