Writer and producer Christopher Nolan brings chases, cliffhangers, shoot-outs, and last minute rescues all together in this science fiction thriller that allows his characters to chase and shoot throughout multiple levels of reality. 

In Inception, Nolan imagines a new level of corporate espionage in which a thief enters a person’s dream to steal ideas. This is done by an entire team of ‘extractors’, who design the architecture of the dreams, forge identities within, and even pharmacologically help several people to share these dreams. 

Leonardo DiCaprio plays Dom Cobb, a master extractor, who initially (for unknown reasons) was on the run and cannot return home to his children in the United States. Then you meet Saito (played by Ken Wantanabe), a powerful businessman that offers Dom his life back in return for a special job. Saito wants Dom to do the impossible; instead of stealing an idea, Saito wants Dom to plant an idea deep in Robert Fisher’s (Cillian Murphy) mind to ultimately break up his father’s multi million dollar corporation for emotional reasons. 

Meanwhile, you meet the other team members, Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Dom’s longtime point man; Eames (Tom Hardy), the forger; Yusuf (Dileep Rao), the chemist; and Dom’s father-in-law (Michael Caine), who is not on the team, but is the professor who taught Dom to share dreams. Dom’s late wife, Mal (Marion Cotillard), haunts his own dreamworld like a kind of Mata Hari, intent on messing with his mind if not staking a claim to his very life. He doesn’t let on about this, but Dom’s new architect, Ariadne (Ellen Page), figures it out — which makes her realize how dangerous it is to share dreams with Dom.

Nevertheless, a good deal of the first hour of the movie is spent convincing the audience on the whole sci-fi idea. As you witness an extraction that fails, and then Dom’s recruitment of his new team around the world, the movie lays out all the hows, whys, whos, and what-the-hells behind ‘extractions.’ If you don’t follow this completely, join the club. It will perhaps take multiple viewings of this film or potentially more similar films to come, to comprehend this action packed film. With incredibly tense situations, suspended across so many dreams within dreams, all that restless energy might induce a kind of reverse stress in audiences, making you want to shout, “C’mon, let’s get on with it.” This is especially true when the hectic action in one dream, a van rolling down a hill with its dreamers aboard, causes a hotel corridor to roll in another, producing a weightless state in the characters.

Moreover, credit goes to the cinematographer, Wally Pfister, for so neatly blending real and surreal throughout the movie. Same goes to the production designer Guys Hendrix Dyas and the various stunt coordinators and effects team. It’s also nice how Nolan strives to keep CG effects to  a minimum as they did as many stunts in camera as possible. This photo realism certainly helps to keep the dream realities looking more plausible. 

Overall, I enjoyed this mind bending twist of a movie, and recommend it to anyone who’s a fan of sci-fi, action, and thriller films. 

Production: Warner Bros. Pictures presents in association with Legendary Pictures a Syncopy production

Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe, Dileep Rao, Cillian Murphy, Tom Berenger, Marion Cotillard, Pete Postlethwaite, Michael Caine, Lukas Haas

Director-screenwriter: Christopher Nolan

Producers: Emma Thomas, Christopher Nolan

Executive producers: Chris Brigham, Thomas Tull

Director of photography: Wally Pfister

Production designer: Guy Hendrix Dyas

Music: Hans Zimmer

Costume designer: Jeffrey Kurland

Special effects supervisor: Chris Courbould

Visual effects supervisor: Paul Franklin

Editor: Lee Smith

Rated PG-13, 149 minutes