Inception

I went to see Inception yesterday. I think it's probably one of the best executed films I've seen in years. Conceptually it's original. The idea of doing a heist movie and setting most of the action inside people's dreams is pretty huge. Dream sequences in film are usually rather lackluster. Either they're too absurd, or too inconsequential to the plot. Yet this film manages to pull off huge parts of the film in dreams, without them either becoming etherial and meaningless, or undream like. While you could be tempted not to worry about danger in a dream because "it's all a dream", Nolan manages to to make the audience genuinely care about the outcome of events without resorting to cheap Fredy Kruger tricks.

Christopher Nolan's direction is amazing. He keeps such a tight reign on what could be an extremely confusing story, that it comes off seamlessly. While it would be easy for a viewer to get lost in the film, it's made in such a way that you always know where you are unless you shouldn't know where you are. Some films which are so highly reliant on mind bending concepts mean that the viewer spends a lot of time saying "What's going on here? Where are they know?", yet this film is so cleanly done, the viewer can see three different scenes, in three different places, using the same characters in the space of 10 seconds and know exactly where they are and what's going on the whole time. The final half hour is some of the most tense, well edited, film making I have ever seen. Particularly worth watching is the zero gravity fight scene, which is so beautifully put together, amazingly choreographed, and fun to watch, it's probably the best fight scene in the past few years.

I know I'm not actually saying much about the plot, or themes, or characters, but I don't really want to. You really should see this film. It's not worth explaining, because it's too hard to explain well. Just go see it, because I said so.