Inception is primarily about central character, Don Cobb (Dicaprio), who is highly skilled in the art of stealing top secret information from deep within the victim's subconscious. This is acheived via a team of similarly skilled fellows who assist in setting up a controlled dream world for the victim to temporarily exist in. Within this dream state Leo and his team go about acheiving their goal, leaving the victim hopefully oblivious to their efforts.

Cobb and partner, Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), are at the end of a failed job when they are propositioned with an offer too good to refuse. Cobb seeks a way out of his current situation of theivery and dream states. His wife is dead and his kids have been taken from him due to the lifestyle he leads and for circumstances that I will not spoil, he needs somebody of great authority to free him from his current life, so that he may rightfully return to his children. His demons are dark and they often consume his mind. He seeks redemption and a final job will deliver it to him. The job is to do the opposite of Cobb's usual task - instead of stealing information, they must plant information. They have to plant an idea into the mind of the victim, Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy), with the idea being Fischer breaking up his near-dead father's multi-million dollar empire.

With an assembled team - including new comer "dream architect", Ariadne (the ever-so ugly Ellen Page), Cobb embarks on the almost impossible mission of diving through three layers of dreams within dreams to implant an idea in the victim's mind. The team will face many challenges along the way, not to mention Cobb's own dark past and guilt over the death of his wife, (bizarrely name) Mal (pronounced "mall" throught the film), coming back to haunt him.

I'll say this, Inception is fucking intense. Within three different dreams worlds lie three different measurements of time. There is an hour of dream time for every 5 minutes of real time. Which means in the dream within the dream, there is an hour of second dream time for 5 minutes of dream time. This means for the case of a dream, within a dream, WITHIN A DREAM - there is an hour of third dream time for every hour of second dream time! Holy shit - that sounds really confusing - but I promise you the film makes it quite straight forward! TO THE INCEPTION TIMELINE TABLE!!



What I'm getting at is the ending of this film is so tense that a HUGE chunk of their mission being acheived (whilst in the third layer of dream) comes down to the time it takes their car to fall off a bridge in the layer of dream 1. This all happens while Arthur faces his own dilemma back in the time system of dream layer 2! All these multi-layered timeframes makes for a tense ending all the way to the very mission deadline!

I'll admit it - Nolan has outdone himself. This film, in my opinion, makes The Dark Knight look like what it is - a fucking Batman movie! The scope, style and substance of this film is almost unmatched within it's genre! The fact that most of the more impressive effect shots are acheived without CGI (when one would assume the only way to do said shot in this day and age would be with CGI) is a true display of champion filmmaking! From the gravity defying combat (with actors actually floating in a zero gravity set) to the folding over of the city, you will be in awe watching this movie knowing that CGI was not used for these scenes. The cinematography alone is to be applauded and if this movie doesn't reek of production Academy Awards I don't know what does?!

The performances are all top notch in this film. Leonardo Dicaprio brings his usual A-game. Cillian Murphy plays the usual rich and disturbed poofter role with a pompous authenticity. Ellen Page brings another good performance, even though her character feels technically underused. The standout performance for me in this movie was Joseph Gordon-Levitt. I've not seen much of his adult work & up until I saw Stop-Loss recently, I only remembered him as the kid from 10 Things I Hate About You and 3rd Rock From The Sun. This guy has matured beyond his years and for the kiss scene between him and Ellen Page alone, his performance must be seen! With the assistance of Dicaprio, Levitt absolutely made this film for me.

The music, the effects, the cinematography, the direction, the acting and most importantly - the STORY - are all as good as it gets with Inception. I truly feel Nolan now deserves his reputation. I didn't want to put all of my eggs into the one Batman basket and now that I've seen this - I know I am not doing so in commending his directing ability.