Inception (Christopher Nolan, 2010)

I haven't rewritten anything in its entirety so much since I started posting. I watched this in a cinema and the first time I saw it, my gut instinct was that it doesn't help to have explosions going off around you all the time. It may not help that I've worried about Christopher Nolan since the twin successes of Memento and Batman Begins. Ridley Scott's career might be a cautionary tale here: bigger and bigger budgets just give the means to fill more screentime with more chases, booms and bangs shot from every conceivable angle and plot and characterisation suffocate under the weight of having to justify the budget and the studio's need for the pyrotechnic trailer where every shot wails for attention like a needy toddler.
Leonardo Di Caprio leads a team of cool crooks who infiltrate their marks' dreams to steal or plant information within their subconscious minds. In terms of cinematic reference points, it's equal parts standard heist film and The Matrix, but plotwise is most directly plundered from Philip K. Dick's novel Eye in the Sky, in which a group of characters find themselves stuck in the fantasy worlds of each other's psyches. This is a pity, as that will now probably be one Dick novel that won't be filmed.
And yet, it's brilliant. Don't focus on the reality-warping imagery, which is cosmetic stuff good for trailers, or the shoot-ups, but on the sheer density of it. This is five hours of content crammed into two-plus, including complex ideas to do with the nature of the subconscious and what we do with our dreams, which makes demands on modern action-film goers they might not be able to take. The first time, I felt it was just Di Caprio grappling with the guilt he feels over the death of his wife, with guns and chases. I now realise they're just the trailer sellers for what can truly be called a thoughtful script which makes entire worlds out of our unconscious desires and their accompanying regrets. This proves Nolan has deserved currency alongside the best filmmakers of the day.

8/10