Cryptically described as a contemporary sci-fi action thriller "set within the architecture of the mind", this is director Christopher Nolan's follow-up to smash-hit The Dark Knight.
Leonardo DiCaprio is Dom Cobb, an expert in "subconscious security". He's a high-tech agent who steals ideas from his targets while they sleep, manoeuvring through their complex and surreal dreamscapes. Cobb's rare ability has made him both a coveted player in the world of corporate espionage, and an international fugitive. Now Cobb is offered one last job and the chance to get his life back. Instead of the perfect heist, Cobb and his team of specialists have to pull off the reverse: not steal an idea but to plant one.
His wife is played by Marion Cotillard, and Elliot Page is his intern sidekick. Joining them are Nolan regulars Michael Caine, Cillian Murphy and Ken Watanabe. The film was shot around the globe, including Tokyo, Los Angeles, Paris and London.
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87%362 reviews
If Inception is a metaphysical puzzle, it's also a metaphorical one: It's hard not to draw connections between Cobb's dream-weaving and Nolan's filmmaking -- an activity devoted to constructing a simulacrum of reality, intended to seduce us, mess with our heads and leave a lasting impression. Mission accomplished.
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Nolan shifts the goalposts in a high-concept hybrid that fuses existential sci-fi and Bondian mayhem into one captivating whole. But you may just end up craving a little more human connection.
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Though there is a lot to see in Inception, there is nothing that counts as genuine vision. Mr. Nolan’s idea of the mind is too literal, too logical, too rule-bound to allow the full measure of madness -- the risk of real confusion, of delirium, of ineffable ambiguity -- that this subject requires.
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Inception does a difficult thing. It is wholly original, cut from new cloth, and yet structured with action movie basics so it feels like it makes more sense than (quite possibly) it does.
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A tremendously exciting science-fiction thriller that's as disturbing as it sounds. This is a popular entertainment with a knockout punch so intense and unnerving it'll have you worrying if it's safe to close your eyes at night.
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In a summer of remakes, reboots and sequels comes Inception, easily the most original movie idea in ages.
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Like The Matrix mated with Synecdoche, New York — or a Charlie Kaufman 007. To paraphrase Casino Royale’s Vesper Lynd, it’s a meaningful pursuit in a summer of disposable entertainments. With physics-defying, thunderous action, heart-wringing emotion and an astonishing performance from DiCaprio, Nolan delivers another true original: welcome to an undiscovered country.
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Sometime in the near future, some clever clog has invented the device that will let us share our dreams with other people, or more sinisterly, to invade those of someone else.
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This film gave me a bit of a headache, but oddly, not in a bad way. It was from concentrating so hard not to miss anything while trying to take it all in.
Full reviewInception is available to stream in New Zealand now on Netflix and Google Play and Apple TV and Neon Rentals and Academy On Demand and AroVision.
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