Inception

Do you remember seeing The Matrix for the first time and then thinking “holy crap, that was the craziest, most daring, most make you think, movie I’ve ever seen!”  Well, after seeing Inception the Wachowski brothers should be jealous.  Christopher Nolan has taken one of the most innovative ideas ever put to the big screen and turned it into a work of art.  Inception dares the audience to trust it and let it take you on a wild ride, all the while in the back of your mind you’re saying “this doesn’t make sense” but the movie begs you to trust that it will deliver you to one of the most satisfying and thought provoking endings imaginable, all the while delivering a subperb plot and a device to move the story through….your mind.

Inception stars Leonardo Dicaprio as Cobb, the most unique thief in the world.  Cobb is not your ordinary thief, instead of stealing material belongings in the conscious world, he opts to steal the darkest secrets locked away in your subconcious, your dreams.  With a device that allows you to dream instantly, Cobb takes one last job offered by a billionare tycoon, Saito (played by the most effective Ken Wantanabe), not to extract a secret but to plant an idea, inception, that would destroy one of his fiercest business rivals, Robert Fischer Jr. (played by Cillian Murphy).  It’s never really revealed what types of businesses both Saito and Fischer Jr. operate out of, but it’s made clear that if Fischer Jr. is allowed to carry on his father’s business, Saito’s company will be left with nothing.

Cobb sets out to put a team of great young minds together, his long time partner, Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt at his finest), a great young arcitecht, Ariadne (Ellen Page), and one of the best con-men Cobb knows, Eames (Tom Hardy).  The idea is to plant an idea into Fischer’s subconciousness so deep that he will have himself convinced he came up with the idea.  The plan then involves conducting the once thought impossible, dream-within a dream – within a dream, three layers deep.  The whole plan and operation is being threatened by Cobb’s subconcious throughout the movie, as the astonishing Marion Cotillard plays Cobb’s deceased wife, Mal, who wants nothing but to be reunited with Cobb again.  What unfolds is some of the finest movie making I’ve ever witnessed.

The whole movie, while running at two and a half hours, teeters on the edge of collapse nearly the whole time but everytime you think the film is going to fall apart, you’re hit with an explanation to events in question.  I’ve never seen a movie walk such a tightrope, story wise, and not fall apart once.  Of course, you’ll watch the movie and sit there asking yourself (in your mind), “what the hell is going on here?” but, like I said, you have to trust Christopher Nolan.  He will deliver you to the “promised land” and you will want to see it again.

Both Gordon-Levitt and Page give great individual performances and I would even go so far to say that Ellen Page is as much of the star of the movie as Dicaprio is here.  Michael Caine makes a glorified cameo as Cobb’s father, the one who taught Cobb all he knows about extraction and inception.  Then there is Tom Berenger who steps out of his cave and back into the acting spotlight with his role of Browning, Fischer Jr’s assistant.  He plays an intricate roll in the movie and I was very pleased that he knocked his part out of the park.  It should be the step that rejuvenates his career.  Wantanabe and Murphy are excellent as always and Tom Hardy is great as the wise-cracking Eames.  Cotillard as Mal is terrific and the scenes with both Ellen Page and Cotillard are riveting just because those are two of the brightest young Hollywood stars in movies today.  The whole cast feeds off each other and seem like a well oiled machine in which needs no direction.  I’m sure Nolan is to credit for some of it, but it just seems as if his directing job was made a whole lot easier with such star power.

Whether you’re into “thinking” through a movie, or whether you just want to go see one of the most unique movies ever put to the screen, you shouldn’t miss Inception.  It’s Nolan’s crowning achievement to date (and you thought The Dark Knight was good…) and he’s the mastermind with a genius idea allowing you to step inside his golden plot.  Could it be the best movie of the past 1o years?  Possibly.  Could it be one of the best movies ever to dare audiences to question their reality?  You bet.