Review: Inception

When the credits rolled and I was thrust back into reality, I only had one word on my mind: Wow. Inception is, by far, the best film I've seen this year. Maybe the best I've seen in a couple of years. I was wary; anytime there's as much buzz around a film as there was around this one you have to be. Often your expectations get too inflated and you feel just a wee bit disappointed afterward, even if you like the film.

I'm not creative enough to have expected more than this. 

I've always been a fan of Christopher Nolan. I saw Memento when it was new and thought that it was an excellent and very thoughtful film. Any one who knows me knows I love Batman, so I loved his exceptional installments in that franchise, particularly The Dark Knight, which I thought deserved at least a nomination for Best Picture, if not the award. However, I think it will be this film that launches Nolan into the pantheon of great directors. Why? Because it's his film. He wrote it and directed it. Unlike Memento, he had $160,000,000 to work with. It's the first time that he's had the chance to take his own intellectual property and expand it to its full potential.

Inception is a visually stunning film. Not just in the usual way, that it has beautiful locales and lush Art Direction, though it does, but in a way that leaves you literally stunned. The special effects are mind-blowing. At one point, Joseph Gordon-Levitt is suspended in an anti-gravity environment ( I won't explain why, since that would spoil the story and probably take several hours) and is moving with such ease and grace that for a moment I actually believed that the actor was floating. When I realized that this wouldn't be possible unless he were in Space or a free-falling airplane, the spell was broken long enough for me to think, "How the hell did he do that?" before being sucked back into the plot. I didn't think about it again until the film was over.

Nolan assembled a stellar cast for this picture. It had just the right balance of  established, well-respected superstars ( Leonardo DiCaprio and Marion Cotillard), solid supporters ( Michael Caine and Cillian Murphy) and the brightest of young talent (Ellen Page and Gordon-Levitt). All turned in superior performances, as expected.

Inception, at its core, is a sci-fi action/adventure film, but it doesn't feel like it. It's an emotional and affecting movie. Yes, there's a lot of action, but the reason it's so good is that the story is good. I wasn't glued to the screen to see the next special effect, though that probably would've been enough, I was waiting to see what happened next. This is not a film about which anyone will tell you to go see it just for the visual effects (unlike another much hyped sci-fi action-er that came out recently).

Nolan was overlooked at the Oscars in 2009. It won't happen again. Inception is the best film of the year so far, and unless someone releases the next Citizen Kane before next March, I predict that it will be duly recognized by the Academy.