Inception (2010)

I was expecting to come out of Inception feeling thoroughly confused. Christopher Nolan's MASSIVE movie takes concentration, but it takes the time to explain what's going on, and at times can feel a bit exposition heavy. It only lost me about 3/4 of the way through when Leonardo DiCaprio and his team of dream thieves went to a snowy location in a dream within a dream within a dream... Each extra layer meant more complication. 

It was only after I left the cinema and talked about the movie with Andrew that I found more and more inconsistancies and confusions. Why did this happen? What was that all about? Was this significant? While I watched it, I enjoyed it a lot, there were some amazing set pieces, and I especially liked the train coming down the middle of the city streets, and the awesome fight with Joseph Gordon-Levitt in a weightless, rotating hotel hallway. All the acting was top notch, with Tom Hardy one of the standouts, possibly just for the fact he brought a bit of levity to proceedings, as the movie had a tendency towards po-faced seriousness. Marion Cotillard as the sort-of baddie was simply wonderful, every scene she was in, she stole. 

Inception was a great film then, though I wouldn't say the best. It would have benefited from a lighter edge here and there. All in all though it was great because I enjoyed it while in the cinema, and then afterwards it made me think about it more. A movie that stays with you or that stimulates discussion will always win out over a dumb popcorn flick, though both have their merits.