Inception

Have you ever woken up from a dream with an unshakable idea? If so, Christopher Nolan's Inception will give you plenty to think about. Of all the movies releasing this summer this is the only one that I felt any sense of excitement about. Like everyone else, I had no clue what the film was really about, but the trippy visuals in the trailers and Nolan's track record for constructing complex narratives were enough to pique my interest. At it's core, Inception is a heist movie. It's about a group of criminals, led by Leonardo DiCaprio's Cobb, who enter people's dreams to steal information. But in their latest job, they must implant an idea in their target's head, something referred to as inception. But like any good heist movie, things don't exactly go according to plan. Cobb's own psychological turmoil introduces several obstacles to the dream scape as the group dives through multiple layers of subconsciousness. The dreams within dreams concept is handled extremely well producing at least three simultaneous narratives, all featuring the same characters attempting to accomplish some sort of goal within a finite time frame. Simply keeping up with what's going on in each dream layer is somewhat exhausting, but it's also completely engaging. I think it's safe to say my mind hasn't had this kind of a work-out since Memento. And like Memento, I think I'll need to see Inception a few more times before I get a good idea of what's really going on. But I do have a theory...