Inception (July 16, 2010) PG-13

Starring:
Leonardo DiCaprio (Romeo + Juliet 1996, Hoover 2012)
Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Brick 2005, Live With It 2010)
Tom Hardy (Eddie and the Cruisers 1983, Last Will 2010)
Ken Watanabe (Batman Begins 2005, Shanghai 2010)
Cillian Murphy (Batman Begins 2005, At Swim-Two-Birds 2010)
Dileep Rao (Drag Me To Hell 2009, Avatar 2009)
Ellen Page (Hard Candy 2005, Super 2010)
Marion Cotillard (Nine 2009, Little White Lies 2010)
Pete Postlethwaite (Romeo + Juliet 1996, The Town 2010)
Michael Caine (Batman Begins 2005, Gnomeo and Juliet 2011)
Lukas Haas (Brick 2005, Crazy Eyes 2010)

Even though the previews made this movie seem too good to be true, I STILL was not disappointed. In fact, this movie was even better than expected, and my expectations were high. I entered the theater with NO idea what I was really in for, and left the theater raving and wanting to see Inception a second and third time while still in theaters.

The film features a few of Director Christopher Nolan's personal favorite people (Michael Caine, Cillian Murphy, and Ken Watanabe). It was cool to see this Batman Begins cast together again.

The film was extremely modern as well, and took the "heist" movie genre to an entire new level.

In order to understand what this movie is about (because the trailers may be ambiguous) you must understand two words/ideas. The first is "extraction."

Extraction is the idea of entering a person's mind through their dreams with the intent and purpose of taking information from the person's mind--information that they would never divulge in the waking world.

Inception is the idea of entering a person's mind through their dreams with the intent and purpose of planting an idea in a person's mind--an idea that will take and remain in the waking world. An idea that the person will act upon.

What surprised me about this movie was the amount of action in it. I went into the theater expecting an intellectually intriguing film (which it was), but I was not expecting it to be so completely action-packed.

I love this movie.

Factoid: In both Shutter Island and Inception, DiCaprio plays a man who's wife haunts his mind.
Also, this is Michael Caine's fourth film he's done with Christopher Nolan (Batman Begins, The Prestige, The Dark Knight, and Inception).