Director: Christopher Nolan Screenplay: Christopher Nolan Cast: Leonardo Di Caprio, Ken Watanabe, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Marion Cotillard Time: 148min Age Restriction: 13V

Genre:
Sci-fi/Thriller

Summary Review:
Inception is a must-see film, setting new standards in creativity, special effects and just plain awesomeness.

Synopsis:
Extraction is the process of stealing people’s thoughts, secrets or ideas, by entering their dreams and gaining access to the deepest vaults of their subconscious.

Mr Cobbs (Leonardo Di Caprio) is the most skilled extractor on the planet. Mr Saito (Ken Watanabe) hires Cobbs and his associate Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) to do something much more difficult, though.

Mr Saito wants them to introduce a new idea into someone’s mind – this is called inception.

But Cobbs has his own mental baggage and a dark secret that threatens to sabotage the entire project.
Inception is an intensely complex film, but is also very fast-paced and if you miss even one line of dialogue, you could lose the plot completely.

This complexity also means that there isn’t much time for the new relationships between the characters to develop, so in one scene they’ll be complete strangers and in the next scene they’ll be treating each other like they’ve known each other for years.

But that is something you just accept, because Inception is so extraordinary. Not only will it keep you thinking throughout, the brilliant cinematography and special effects used to create the different dream worlds is ingenious.

A friend of mine recently studied Plato’s theory of The Cave and how that idea was reflected in The Matrix Trilogy of films, and there are definitely some philosophical comparisons that can be drawn with Inception.

Marion Cotillard plays one of the strangest antagonistic characters of all time, Joseph Gordon-Levitt gets to trade his nerdy image for some super cool action moves and there are refreshing slashes of humour at the most unexpected moments, which gives some relief to the tense rollercoaster ride of the story and adds a hint of charm and humanity to Inception and its characters.