Reviews

Watching Inception is like striking a match and setting your brain on fire. The movie's tagline, your mind is the scene of the crime, is so much more than a reference to what happens in the film. Sure the plot involves a group of dream-invading thieves, but in the process of telling that story, something much bigger happens inside your own head. It's as if writer/director Chris Nolan has invaded your brain as well. As he attempts to unlock the secrets of the human psyche, his movie implants its own ideas in your subconscious. You'll walk out of Inception questioning your own reality. It's a feeling I haven't had since the first time I saw The Matrix, only, Inception pulls it off without fetish leather and kung fu.

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Inception captures the inner workings of dreams in a way no other movie has before: Realistically. How do you know when you're dreaming? You don't, at least not until you wake up. The world of Nolan's dreams is almost real and you'll have to look closely around the edges for discontinuity, for the little places where things don't quite fit together. It's all there in the way the movie's filmed and as Hans Zimmer's brilliant, throbbing score swells around you in the theater and Nolan's carefully chosen images shine out from the screen you may even find yourself wondering not if you're watching a dream, but if you're actually in one.

By Josh Tyler

"True inspiration is impossible to fake," explains a character in Christopher Nolan's existentialist heist film Inception. If that's the case, then Inception is one of the most honest films ever made. Nolan has crafted a movie that's beyond brilliant and layered both narratively and thematically. It requires the audience to take in a collection of rules, exceptions, locations, jobs, and abilities in order to understand the text, let alone the fascinating subtext. Nolan's magnum opus is the first major blockbuster in over a decade that's demanded intense viewer concentration, raised thoughtful and complex ideas, and wrapped everything all in a breathlessly exciting action film. Inception may be complicated, but simply put it's one of the best movies of the year.

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The film deserves, demands, and rewards repeat viewings, but from your first viewing you can grasp the events on screen and how they interact with each other as long as you force yourself to be an active viewer. But with set pieces so intricate, so jaw-dropping, and so breathtaking, you'll find that there's no exertion needed to stay focused. You'll already be swept up in the whirlwind.

By Matt Goldberg