Inception

It seemed inevitable that a movie like this was bound to be made. The world of dreams is one in which we all inhabit, and yet it is a resource hardly ever tapped into by the movies, probably because dreams make very little sense. Well, now we have Inception, which is able to make some semblance of sense as it tells a compelling story through varying levels of subconsciousness. And provides a wonderful thrill ride as it does so.

It took me a while to warm to this film, but warm to it I did as the second half of the story kicked in. The beginning had an excessive amount of exposition, which I guess is hard to get around with such a new and complex concept. But it still felt a little too much like Morpheus explaining the Matrix to Neo. Nonetheless, the world that was being explained is an incredibly interesting one.

Inception is a thriller filled with ideas and each of these ideas makes sense in their presentation. For example, there is a fight scene in zero gravity which isn’t just there to look cool; there is a reason why it happens that way. Its not just visual effects for the sake of having visual effects.

My favourite idea of the movie is how they dealt with the idea that time lasts longer in dreams than in real life, and that time is compounded for each level of dreaming. They use this idea to great effect, especially near the end where you have multiple scenes occurring simultaneously, all at different rates of time. Nolan is ingeniously able to increase tension through all of these different levels and maintain coherence through each, leaving the audience with a seat-gripping thriller.

As the movie began, I was worried that it was going to be nothing more than existential musings inhabited by thin characters with see-through motivations. But it proved me wrong. The motivation of the main character Dom gets deeper and deeper as more secrets are revealed and the story is a well-rounded plot which holds everything together incredibly well and prevents it from drifting into self-important surrealism.
An amazing movie-going experience. 9.5/10