Movie Gazette

With a small but hugely impressive catalogue of films behind him, including Memento, The Prestige and the best ever instalments of the Batman franchise, Christopher Nolan must be considered one of the finest film makers out there at the moment. His latest, and arguably his best, is Inception – a complex thriller located in the world of dreams.

Inception is set in a time where there is the technology for certain people to enter others’ dreams. Usually Cobb (DiCaprio) invades dreams to steal information for powerful clients but on this latest occasion he must subtly plant an idea in the mind of Robert Fisher Jnr. (Murphy), an heir to the world’s most powerful energy company, to disband his father’s business empire. Cobb is wanted for the apparent murder of his wife Cotillard) but if he and his crew, including architect Ariadne (Page), chemist Yussuf (Rao) and hoaxer Eames (Hardy), are successful he will be exonerated and allowed to see his kids again.

Yes, the storyline is complicated and there are times where you will be thinking ‘Huh? Where am I? What’s my name?’ but let’s give audiences the credit they deserve, if you go into the cinema willing to concentrate and put in the work yourself then this will ultimately be a very rewarding experience. Really, it’s just a heist movie that is set in such a way that it allows the Director to play out different layers of the story simultaneously.The CGI landscapes look impressive and smooth and some of the action sequences, like one in zero gravity, are novel and fascinating. Importantly, the graphics are not shoved in your face with a big ‘Look what we can do!’ like in the disaster-porn epics, but rather are just there as the surroundings not the focal points. The world of the dream allows Nolan to use varied settings that allow the time to fly by, so in 148 minutes we are taken from bleak cityscape to winter warzone to decaying underworld. Also, the graphics and drama are well complimented by a brooding soundtrack that helps build the atmospheric tension.

The characterisation is excellent as all the fraudsters are likeable, DiCaprio’s Cobb is suitably troubled (not seen him smile in a while) and Fischer is not vilified but comes across sympathetically as a victim. Christopher Nolan seems to have a soft spot for the ageing Michael Caine as he always like to give him a bit-part in most of his movies. My Grandad has Bingo to pass the time, Michael Caine has Chirstopher Nolan movies.