Film Review: INCEPTION

Someone's really bad dream.

If you enjoy wasting time in front of a screen, you can't do better than Inception. It's got it all: Leonardo DiCaprio, loud music, plenty of gunfights, ridiculously implausible car chases and more things blowing up than you could ever even imagine. And there's no silly plot to worry about, because the plot is so silly that half an hour in you don't care.

You see, Leonardo plays a man who earns his living by extracting thoughts from other people's brains while they are dreaming. He is really good at it, but he got in trouble with the law and is now out of work. Luckily a rich businessman (Ken Watanabe) shows up and asks him to implant an idea into a person's brain instead, promising that if he succeeds, his criminal record will be expunged. Naturally Leo (not his character's name) agrees, and immediately pulls together his usual Brain Dream Team and gets going.

Many people get hooked up to machines. They are given sedatives. They dream. They dream they are dreaming. Then, pushing the envelope, they dream they are dreaming about dreaming! To put it mildly, it's impossible to figure out who is dreaming and what level of dream they are in. Like, one guy gets shot pretty bad, bleeds a lot, and may even die! But no worries, since he will wake up.

Similarly, the movie ends and you are free to resume your ordinary life and never think about any of it ever again, although the next day you may wonder why Ellen Page was cast in the role of the brilliant architect who designs the dream spaces when she looks and talks like she is in the seventh grade. Also on hand is Marion Cotillard who wears a negligee a lot and is, as always, stunning.