Writer/director Christopher Nolan’s futuristic intrigue thriller is a visually astonishing magic act of state-of the-art filmmaking.
There’s a psychological mystery aspect to Leonardo DiCaprio’s mentally virtuosic but emotionally crippled character Dom Cobb that tilts toward his equally compelling performance in “Shutter Island” as it relates to a wife (Marion Cotillard) and children that he desperately wants to return to. To do so Cobb takes on an intrepid mission of corporate espionage (termed “inception”) ordered by an Asian mogul named Saito (Ken Watanebe).
Saito will enable passage back to his family if Cobb and his team—which includes Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Tom Hardy, and Ellen Page—can utilize their highly trained and rare skills to plant an idea into the mind of Robert Fischer (Cillian Murphy), a business rival. Cobb and his team must dig down beneath Fischer’s well-defended layers of subconscious thinking where things like the laws of physics don’t always apply.
By the time our crew of psychological journeymen get down to the dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream, the puzzle of narrative complexity loses much of its appeal. It doesn’t help matters that Nolan resorts too often to the time-honored but stale action movie device of faceless men with guns firing hundreds of rounds of ammunition that miraculously miss their point blank human targets.
The performances are top-notch across the board, and Michael Caine’s welcome inclusion in a supporting role is a nice touch. However, “Inception” is a sci-fi psychological thriller that doesn’t always know when to coast or how to take emotional advantage of its over-the-top visual effects.
Rated PG-13. 142 mins.
