Dream on, and on, and on...My review of "Inception"

Movies can serve many purposes other than simple entertainment. Oh sure, there's nothing wrong with a CGI skeleton legion battling actors who've hit the gym religiously. Who doesn't love background explosions and foreground characters who can somehow run faster than fire? Note: only protagonists and/or sexy characters have this ability. Such films are energetic, frenzied, colorful entertainment. The Mountain Dew of movies.

By contrast, the Earl Grey of movies are those that get you thinking about yourself, or reflecting on the point the movie was trying to make. These films oil the gears of your brain into movement, often hitting emotional nerves along the way. Powerhouse actors, usually older (thus appearing wiser), deliver booming displays of loss, longing, passion, or hatred through the rawness of their portrayals. The plot must be concentrated on, lest smell details slip through the cracks. You may walk out of the theater feeling exhausted. The drawback is that when such films are artsy to the point of stuffiness, it can exclude an audience. Tough to watch a movie when ya spend the entire time rolling your eyes.

My favorite movies, a rare breed, mix the soda and the tea together into something stimulating on multiple levels. The sensory experience and visuals mystify, and when the credits roll, your brain reels with the possibilities of what it all meant.

"Inception" is just such a film. Difficult to describe, this movie carries you to places not-unfamiliar, but in ways you've never travelled there before. There's CGI work at hand, but you'll be too busy picking your jaw up off the floor for your brain to remind you it's an effect. Performances are grounded in complex motivations that don't really surface until the movie's nearly over. The action is the type that keeps your hands digging deep into the armrests of your seat, but it's also balanced by an equally impressive plot. To really get into detail, I'm going to take some inspiration from the film. You see, 'Inception' deals with dreams, and the nature of dreaming vs. reality. As such, there's a lot of complexity between reality and what the brain perceives to be reality. It's easy to get confused, so let's go by level, getting deeper and deeper.

No worries, spoiler free

Level 1: The Real - "Inception" centers on a group of experts who specialize in information theft. But rather than hacking computers, these thieves steal ideas from your mind while you dream in a process called 'Extraction'. Their clients are often VIPs looking to procure secrets from other VIPs. Thing is, in this world, people know extraction exists, so corporate CEOs and government officials train their subconscious to fight off any foreign invasion the way an antibody would fight off a pathogen. Thus, if one were to hack into such a person's dream, they'd find themselves fighting an armed military force, really just their target's subconscious mental defenses. In most cases, dying in a dream only causes one to wake up. But like the film, itself, things aren't always that simple.

Level 2: The Deal - Leonardo DiCaprio is hired by a corporate big-wig played by Ken Watannabe to attempt the opposite of extraction: Inception. This deals with planting an idea into someone's head deep enough so that the target believes they came up with it. To say the process is complex would be an understatement. The gig requires the target to not only believe they are awake (while they actually dream), but also to make the dream realistic enough to avoid the target's subconscious self-defense. As such, DiCaprio leads a team to weave a simultaneously maze-like and life-like cerebral illusion for their target. Ellen Page acts as the 'architect', crafting the landscape of the dream world. The target enters the dream world, then projects their own subconscious onto it, believing it to be real life. Tom Hardy acts as the 'forger', who researches up on the target and mimics those that person is comfortable with, allowing them to get close while in the dream. This is only scratching the surface, but it gives you an idea of how much goes into such heists. And all the potential for things to go wrong.

Level 3: The Surreal - Dreams are affected by the reality that goes on around them. This means that whatever happens to your sleeping self in the real world ripples down and bleeds into the dream. If your sedated body topples over, your dream world will literally flip upside down. This is a key factor to pulling someone out of the dream, or giving them the 'kick'. Because of this detail, physics often bend like rubber. One amazing fight scene sees Joseph Gordon Levitt wrestling a guard while the hallway rotates, slamming them against walls and ceiling. It sounds like the Matrix, I know, but it really is originally done. Much of the intense action in the movie is the result of such reality bending. These are the scenes that'll make your eyes go wide.

Further compounding the "ripple down" effect is the skewed timing of dreams. You know how a dream seems like it went on for an hour, but only took about ten minutes? That's how timing works in the dream world. And when you get into dreams-within-dreams (which happens frequently in this movie), the time factor compounds itself. Twenty minutes on one level is two hours on level two and a week on level three. Imagine coordinating a heist that took place in four different time streams. Oh yea, and when you wake up, you have to get pulled out of each dream level at the same exact instant. They all pretty much have to sync up, regardless of how much time speed difference exists between them.

Level 4 - The Reveal - So my brain already hurts from attempting to summarize the story and characters. Believe it or not, I've only barely brushed the surface. But I assure you, the film does an excellent job of explaining things clearly to the audience. You have to pay sharp attention, but the beauty and intensity of the scenery and plot with keep you wrapped. I neglected to mention specific details about what happens in the dreams, or go into too much detail about the characters. I did this because the plot unfolds around things that are only discovered as the dreams, and film, goes deeper. Motivations and emotions surface not as confessions, but as acted out scenarios within someone's subconscious. I can say that the acting was suburb all the way around. Such roles must have been difficult, as the surreal element of the plot often deals with very real themes of loss and regret.

But these themes are where the movie leaves its lasting impression. The nature of 'Inception' lies in how our perception of reality reflects what our subconscious believes. It can be difficult at times to separate what really is true from what we believe (or wish) to be true. When one can actually enter a dream, and everything looks/feels real, what's to prevent us from mistaking that dream for reality? More disturbingly, what memories of pain that our subconscious minds cling to might visit us in those dreams? The brilliant ending cements this idea firmly into your head.

It's rare that a film manages to hit both emotional and sensory cords, but 'Inception' does so in spades. The originality of the story, the complexity of the plot and characters, and the stunning visual and creative powers on display pull you in deeper and deeper. The final half-hour is one of the most 'edge-of-your-seat' sequences you'll likely see at the movies all year. It all ends in a hugely satisfying domino-effect that ties up all ends, numerous as they are. Except perhaps for one...(mwuahaha, foreboding!)

You'll leave the theater not only blown away by the spectacle, but also deep in thought over what our own dreams say about us, and the very world we live in. Is what we create in life a reflection of what we create in our heads? To answer that question, you'll have to dig deep.

Sleep tight.