Re-posting this to this thread...
**** (Out of 4)
This film was astounding. I went in to the theater with extremely high expectations after following this film for the better part of two years. I consider Christopher Nolan to be one of the best living directors out there. Memento is on my short list of roughly 30 movies that I have deemed "perfect". The Prestige had me interested in magic for weeks afterward, and it continues to have that affect after each viewing. Insomnia was an excellent crime thriller although not quite as BIG as Nolan's other films. The Dark Knight pulled off a miracle by getting me interested in a superhero movie. As a child I was never in the least bit interested in superheroes. I never picked up a comic. I never watched previous superhero movies. The Spiderman, X-Men, etc. hype never caught me.
Inception joins Memento on that short list of top notch movies. With that being said, I still will need to view this movie a couple more times in order to get a full grasp on the plot. The movie starts off very confusing as Nolan chooses to cut back and forth within the story much like he did with Memento. Eventually the audience starts to get a grasp of what exactly is going on. Then there was about 45 minutes of full understanding before the ending which was also a bit confusing... I wouldn't say it was confusing. It was just an ambiguous ending a lot like Shutter Island that has evidence supporting two different views of the entire movie.
Hans Zimmer composed a score for this film comparable to the greatness of his "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Last Samurai" scores. The music went along perfectly with the film and succeeded in setting the tone for each scene. With that being said I don't think I could listen to it alone in the car like I can with my favorite film scores like Slumdog Millionaire, The Assassination of Jesse James, Atonement, etc.
The acting was excellent as I expected it to be. With a cast boasting the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, Marion Cotillard, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ken Watanabe, and Michael Caine you can't expect anything other than brilliance. Ellen Page stepped up for me as well, she was a terrific character to the story and I can't imagine anybody playing the part better than she did. Cillian Murphy and Tom Hardy were brilliant. I had never heard of either of them before seeing Inception, but I am excited to see more from them in the future.
As far as the plot goes, I do not want to give away too much. It was an extremely complex movie similar to a David Lynch movie, Memento, Eyes Wide Shut, etc. The film is about dreams and the way that it is filmed, in its entirety, is similar to the structure of a dream. Dom Cobb, played by Leonardo DiCaprio, enters the minds of others through group dreaming in order to steal their ideas. Of course dreams are not always simple. We have lucid dreams, nightmares, multi-layered dreams, etc. Our minds are extremely complicated as is this film. Again I don't want to give away too much about this plot. 1 because I don't want to spoil it. 2 because I need more viewings to fully understand it.
See this film if you are a Nolan fan, an action fan, a DiCaprio fan, a psychological thriller fan, etc. One trailer for this movie says that it is The Matrix meets James Bond. I believe that is an accurate description for what exactly the genre of this movie would be. In order to also bring the plot, acting, and sheer greatness into play you can say it is The Matrix meets Bond, meets Memento, meets Shutter Island, meets the Dark Knight. I would prefer to just say that the movie is Inception and with all of the similarities it has to other films, I found it to be completely original.
