First off, Inception was hands down the best film I have seen all year so far and it needs to get some attention, and a lot of it, this awards season. Sadly, telling you why is going to be very difficult from a story perspective to avoid spoilers. But even with just the minimum of story points, there is plenty to gush about.

So I will give a bit of a story summary but if you want to go in blind, skip the next paragraph. Seriously, I’ve even book ended it with photos.

Alright did you go? If you didn’t and want to avoid any knowledge of the thing go now. From the trailer it is obvious that Inception is about dream invasion. Apparently in the movie dream invasion is so prevalent that corporate bigwigs undergo training to avoid Extractors or people who go into dreams to steal ideas and information from the subconscious. Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) are two such Extractors who find themselves hired by Saito (Ken Watanabe), a corporate heavy who wants them to do something different. Instead of stealing an idea he wants Cobb and Arthur to plant one. The process is called Inception and it is hard to do. Arthur said it can’t be done and Cobb insists it can. They build a team and come up with a plan on how to do it. Unfortunately, Cobb has some extra baggage he hasn’t mentioned to any one and only their new architect Ariadne (Ellen Page) knows how bad it is. And things go pretty south.

Okay so plot synopsis, such as it is, is done and you are safe to keep reading. I found the story very challenging and engaging. It is not entirely linear and to call the story multi-layered would be an understatement. I am not going to be a pretentious douchebag and suggest that maybe audiences aren’t bright enough to follow the story but you do really have to pay attention and actively follow. It would be easy to be distracted by something and miss a major event in what the hell is going on. The beginning in particular moves pretty quickly without much explanation and it would be easy to be left behind but in relatively short order it is all explained in a fair amount of detail. Sure having to recruit someone new and explain everything to them is definitely a narrative device but dammit it works and does its job well here.

The cast is pretty great. The leads are all awesome as one would expect and the rest of the cast is equally great although Ken Watanabe’s English can be a tad hard to understand at times. Tom Hardy really stood out to me as Eames. I loved him in RocknRolla and he is great here. Cillian Murphy hits all the notes just right as the target of the Inception and it is great to see Tom Berenger again. Between Tom Berenger and Eric Roberts, Christopher Nolan is really becoming something of a Quentin Tarantino for resurrecting careers. Everyone involved does a great job and they even have Pete Postlethwaite just to lie in a bed for a bit. Top notch across the board.

Story and performances aside, one of the most amazing things about this movie to me is that it was able to be made at all. The individual pieces that have to come together to make it work are staggering and Nolan has done it with as sure a hand as I have ever seen. It all fits together like an elaborate puzzle but in this case it isn’t just one puzzle but several stacked on top of them. That any one of these puzzles fit together and shows what they are meant to is an impressive feat. That all of them fit together not just individually but all together is amazing. When you step back and look at the whole you will see it is the work of a master.

Part of the above is possible only because of the visual style and effects. This is integral maintaining the dream state and keeping the audience on their toes. Everything in this movie looks amazing. The shots used are brilliant and move beyond just showing you what is going on and into art in and of themselves. That is one thing that is really missing in the sequel and remake summer blockbuster season and you don’t really even notice so much until something like this comes along and it is just stunning. Not that all movies need to be like this but when you have it it makes the whole thing that much more enjoyable.

The effects used are just straight gorgeous and serve the story as opposed to the story just being there so a bunch of CGI can happen. I won’t say the effects are necessarily understated or subtle because they aren’t but there is nothing excessive at all. People complain about slow motion these days and there is a decent amount of it here but there is a reason it is here and it looks fantastic. Like wise there are some scenes that I don’t want to ruin that are very special effects heavy and look just stunning. There is a certain Matrix/Dark City vibe with some of it but Inception does it its own way and delivers superior effects for it.

The runtime was 148 minutes and it definitely takes its time getting where it is going but I think it kind of needs to for the proper payoff. I can’t imagine losing any of it and I enjoyed every second. As it reaches the climax it puts you more and more on edge about how it will all end up and even when it stops to let a scene really play out the scene is full of tension and excitement. I will say that it was a horrible mistake to polish off my large soda right as the movie started as the ending was filtered through a very real fear that I might piss myself in a sold out theater. As it was I made it to the bathroom and did a very spot on impression of Ogre from Revenge of the Nerds II. So be advised, you are going to be in the theater for awhile so plan your hydration and evacuation accordingly. But that should tell you how engaged I was if nothing else.

Conclusion [10 out of 10]

Inception is a masterwork of a director/writer who knows how make great films. Inception is thought provoking and intelligent but also exciting and suspenseful. It is gorgeous to look at and superbly acted. It is also stunningly well put together a feat which I am sure was a logistical nightmare. It is simply incredible.