So.
There's been a looooooot of hype about this movie, largely based on some really creative-looking trailers (including a distinctive, bombastic soundtrack,) and the fact that it was written and directed by Christopher Nolan, the same director who brought us Memento, The Prestige, The Dark Knight, and Insomnia.
Allow me to be the first to tell you that it deserves every tiny little erg of energy anyone has spent telling someone else how awesome a movie it really is.
What a brilliant movie.
My lovely co-pilot and I went and saw it last night, and our discussion of it not only lasted the night, but continued this morning (and at the theater itself, roped in several bystanders who had also just seen it.)
So, spoiler-free, let me tell you what I can about this movie.
The premise is both intriguing and simple: a thief, Dominic Cobb, played to a T by Leonardo DiCaprio, who specializes in stealing information literally from the dreams of his victims, is hired to do the reverse; to plant an idea in the mind of the intended victim, in such a way that the victim believes it to be his own idea, and acts on it accordingly.
But the nature of this film is such that literally everything that happens in the movie is open to interpretation. Reality itself is bent - both figuratively and literally - in the movie in such ways that it is impossible to purely nail down exactly what happened - or didn't - in its story, and as such, this is possibly the greatest water-cooler movie ever.
Since so much of the movie takes place in dreams, things in this film don't necessarily mean what they appear to at first glance, and their significance may be simultaneously more and less than you thought when you became aware of them initially.
...See why this movie is hard to critique? Even were I to lay out the entire series of events in the movie, start to finish, it's almost impossible to "spoil" it, because director Nolan plays a magnificent game of prestidigitation with the audience, alternately hiding things you thought you knew, and displaying other things you didn't understand as established facts.
Watching this film is like a fever dream; it makes sense, but only within itself; and yet its greater importance is that it demands so much of the audience. You cannot watch this movie and walk away unaffected; you may not like it, but it forces you to think about the implications of its message - and the meaning, ultimately, of that message itself.
I am very picky when it comes to paying ten bucks a head to go to the theater; a lot of times I choose to watch even big-name movies at home.
But this movie deserves the broad canvas of the big screen, guys.
It doesn't need 3D; it doesn't need cheap tricks to hold your interest.
As a whole, its artistry of filmmaking performs an endless sleight of hand upon you, and transforms what, in the hands of a lesser director, could have been disappointing, into a pinnacle of the art of film; this is what movies should be like.
Christopher Nolan is legit, guys. This was the best movie I've seen in years. It belongs on everyone's DVD shelf.
