Inception (July 16, 2010) PG-13

(I wrote this FOREVER ago, but never Published it...)

Leonardo DiCaprio (Cobb) watching Ellen Page (Ariadne)
as she changes his dream world on a big scale
(Photo taken from trailers.apple.com)

Starring:

Leonardo DiCaprio (Romeo + Juliet 1996, Hoover 2012)

Joseph Gordon-Levitt (Brick 2005, Live With It 2010)

Tom Hardy (Eddit and the Cruisers 1983, Last Will 2010)

Ken Watanabe (Batman Begins 2005, Shanghai 2010)

Cillian Murphy (Batman Begins 2008, 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, A Good Year 2006)

Pete Postlethwaite (Romeo + Juliet 1996, The Town 2010)

Michael Caine (The Dark Knight 2008, 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. I entered the theater with NO idea what I was in for, and left the theater raving and wanting to see Inception a second, third, and fourth time while it's still in theaters.

DiCaprio (Cobb) worried he's still in a dream
(Photo taken from collider.com)

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 them together again, even though they never had any scenes together in Batman Begins.

The film was extremely modern, in fact it's unclear when the story takes place, but I believe it takes place in the near future.

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

Extraction is the idea of entering a person's mind through their dreams, exploring around, and gathering information from the person that they would never--in the waking world--divulge freely.

Inception is the idea of going into a person's mind through their dreams with the intent and purpose of planting an idea in the person's mind--an idea that will take hold even in the waking world. An idea that person will act upon. This concept is believed to be impossible...

Gordon-Levitt (Arthur) in combat with gravity acting up...
(Photo taken from moviemail.com)

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.

Factoid: Many Hollywood producers and executives thought that this high-budget drama-action film would do poorly in theaters because it was "too smart" for audiences.  $160 million budget, but the film's gross worldwide ticket sales exceeded $825 million, landing it in the top 50 top grossing movies of all time.