Inception

Review Image: 

Inception

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Don Cobb in Chris Nolan's (The Dark Knight) latest mind twisting thriller.  Don Cobb is the worlds greatest extractor, a particular kind of theif who breaks into the intended victims mind and steals their deepest secrets to the highest paying bidder.  When Cobb is approcahed by Saito (Ken Watanabe) with the job that could be the one that allows him to retire and return to his old life and children, who he hasn't seen for years due to nature of his job, he has been prevented from seeing them.  Only this time the job is not a stright forward task, instead of stealing secrets he has to plant an idea in the mind of the target (Cillian Murphy).  This 'Inception' has previously never happened or worked, so the challenge is on for Cobb to handpick a team (Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page & Tom Hardy) to make the impossible, possible.

The journey into their targets mind is in jeopardy from the get go as Rober Fischer Jr (Murphy), seems to have some form of mind defence training and puts up a fight.  The team are also hampered by Cobbs deceased wife (Marion Cotillard) who keeps cropping up and distracting Cobb from the task in hand.  With time running out and the plan getting evermore complicated, the race is on to get the idea planted and get out of Fischers mind before it's all too late.

Inception is Chris Nolans latest opus and much like The Dark Knight before it has spralling visuals, slow tracking shots over vast cityscapes and a fantastic score by Hans Zimmer.  Essentially Inception is The Matrix spliced with Oceans Eleven, in it's earliest version, Nolan had indeed scripted the film as a heist movie, however it moved upscale into the film Inception now is.  He has also assembled a fine cast that works beautifully with each other and lends to the plot development and the emotion of the story.  The emotion as well is the key part to this film as whether you love this movie or not will hinge on whether you can associate with Cobb's emotional journey.  The film once again deals with Nolan's conflicted man story, much like that throughout The Dark Knight.  In fact there are a lot of similarities between the two films as has already been mentioned.  But Inception is a matured version of teh film and takes it to the next level.

The visuals are simply astounding at times and manage to take your breath away, in the same way The Matrix did back in 99.  The hotel corridor fight and ensuing rescuer attempt is fantastically tense for example, there are a few questions around some of the science in the timings between levels of mind trips (You'll understand once you've seen it), however yet again Nolan delivers on yet another level.

The acting talent on hand has such range a broadness and depth that you get totally imersed in the film.  As well as already mentioned stellar cast, there is also Micheal Caine, Pete Postlethwaite and Tom Berenger (Where's he been all those years? ) who all bring even more gravitas to the movie.  It's unlikely you will see a more original movie this summer and must see as this.  The only downside is that because of the sure fire sucess that Inception will see, means that we will most likely get a sucession of poor sci fi mind twisters, most of which will likely go straight to DVD and will be clogging up screens for some time to come.  A bittersweet pill to swallow unfortunately.

However Inception is going to spark debate for some time to come with it's sub plots and the ending for sure.  The best way however to approach this movie is to not to know anything about it and go in with a free mind, because by the time the credits roll you will be doing flips and double salko's trying to unravel it all.  That may require multiple viewings too.

Overall Rating:

Discuss Inception on the Official Screen One Forum