Spoiler Free Inception Review

If you want a very quick summary of how I felt about the movie, try to look at the timestamp of this post. Very few movies warrant reviews and recommendations from me, and even fewer get recommended at two in the morning.

Inception is a movie by Chrisopher Nolan, the same guy who turned a particularly campy franchise into the homerun-making sunnovabitch of a movie - The Dark Knight. Unlike the batman movie though, Inception has no franchise to rely on. Honestly, even the posters and trailers were either sucky or misleading - and actually made me think that the movie was a Silence of The Lambs style psychothriller.

I can tell you it's not. And that it's much much more.

The movie centers around the idea that some people can enter the dreams of other people and use it to their advantage in knowing or manipulating that person's ideas. It's nothing new, as a matter of fact, just last week's chapters of the Naruto Manga and Bleach Manga had the same IDEA going on. But as the saying goes, it's not what kind of bat you get, it's how you swing it.

The world that Nolan built around the concept of entering minds is simply breathtaking. It's one of those movies that can carry its own weight without the fancy fanservice, the nostalgia, and the huge unnecessary explosions that permeate seemingly every other movie. The dimensions touched by the movie are intimidating - but far from unintelligible. Casual moviegoers are treated with gorgeous but apt visuals, while more technical ones are left with mounds of mindcandy to sort through hours after watching the movie.

The movie is almost three hours long, but like the Dark Knight, there is seldom a slow moment. The general theme of the movie about one man's guilt and attempt at redemption is kept clear throughout, although the complexity of the premises make the general storyline take a backstage position during the movies more gripping moments.

Action from Di Caprio and that girl from Juno (Ellen Page) is so so, but luckily the other elements of the movie like camera movement, lighting, and soundtrack more than makes up for it. Special props to Di Caprio's ex wife's chilling performance. My biggest disappointment as far as acting goes is Ken Watanabe, who really should start moving out of the whole "Witty but stoic Japanese strongfigure" mold.

There were also some loopholes in the movie, albeit near negligible (clue: it's related to, but not directly about familiar faces) and hardly noticeable. Other than those minor things, the whole thing feels solid, like a bloody rock.

I personally think this movie will be the next "The Matrix" of this decade, inspiring people to philosophize the whole thing unnecessarily. As far as my personal gauge goes, I'd go so far as putting this beside Lord of War, one of my most favorite movies of all time.

This review is long but my recommendation is short: Watch it by all means.