Ah, Christopher Nolan. How I’m beginning to hate you. Not because you’re delivering horrible stinker after stinker, quite the contrary, you just keep making TOO good of movies. Just what I need, one more thing for me to become a fan of. Just when I think Nolan is in that horrible dead-zone where everything you make is unbelievably overly hyped no matter what(Shyamalan), I’m surprised. With a track record like Memento, the Dark Knight, and the Prestige… I guess we really shouldn’t be too surprised anymore. So, I decided to make the long track out to the local IMAX to give Inception a good viewing over.

Inception starts off with questions. You know almost immediately, if you accomplished the amazing task of avoiding the movie’s marketing, that the movie is going to be filled with mystery and just enough confusion to keep you interested. It doesn’t take long either for this to come fruition, like a whole 5 minutes into the film, actually. But it’s done WELL. All the acting in the movie is spot-on. Nolan has a full star cast here and they live up to their names. Not to give the impression that the movie feels like a big-budget movie relying on A-List actors talent alone, it’s not like that at all. In combination with some of the best sound and music I’ve heard this summer; the writing, dialogue, and plot does not feel forced and you’ll find yourself soon believing we might all be victims of inception soon enough.

Trust us, it just works.

One of the things that I loved about the movie is that they give a lot of depth and explanation behind the craziness of what they are doing. They don’t just feed you some machine that can invade dreams without going into how it works conceptually, and it’s awesome. For example, the more deep into someones dreams you are, the slower you perceive time around you in that dream. So if someone was diving deep into my dreams, only 5 minutes might pass in the real world, but they may have lived 10 years in that dream. It creates a lot of layer and depth to their actions, and the cinematography used to incorporate understanding of this into the film is astounding and unique. It doesn’t feel stylish or forced at all.

Next, a scene I have to comment on, is the scene with Joseph Gorden-Levitt in the hallway of a building. You’ve most likely seen this in the trailer, if you’ve avoided it so far, let me assure you it’s awesome. They take into account the lack of gravity in these scenes with the utmost detail and precision that you can’t help but erupt with giddy joy as you see Levitt leap around the hallway with complete disregard for top & bottom. I even felt a hint of spider-man as you watch him take advantage of the situation to enact cruel physical punishment on some enemies.

Ellen Page delivers a great performance and is involved a lot more then the marketing has let on so far, which I fail to understand – as her performance was a very strong point in the film. It also helps that she’s adorable. Also if you’re a fan of Drag me to Hell, you’ll love Dileep Rao as he plays a store-owner (which I thought was a funny note, as he plays a shop-owner in Drag me to Hell as well) that decides to come along for the mind-adventure and he’s great fun.

No gravity? No Problem! I'm still going to beat you to a pulp.

The movie keeps you on your toes with its unique story-telling, while looking beautiful at the same time. The music is going to keep your feet pressed to the ground, and the suspense will keep you waiting for more. The action is also top-notch. The explosions, death, and just the architecture of the areas they’re fighting in gives a unique glimpse at action you won’t get to feel, and it isn’t the typical Matrix bullet-time nonsense we’ve grown accustom to being shoved down our throats. As the movie wraps up and In typical Nolan vein, the movie is ambiguous, so you can take what you want from it and it’s something I love and hate about Nolan.

It’s by far the best movie of the summer so far, if not one of the best I’ve seen this year. If you haven’t checked it out, take some time to dive into a mind bursting adventure that will surely leave you wanting more. Perhaps it will even leave you questioning what you think about next time you fall asleep… Or at the very least, you’ll see some people get beat/killed/maimed in pretty amazing ways.

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