Inception is about a man by the name of Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), who is an expert in the craft of extraction, a type of theft by way of stealing information from people’s subconscious while they sleep. In other terms, there are sort of two different worlds in this movie - the real world and the dream world. Dom Cobb, however, hasn’t been able to see his kids because of the consequences of his job. When he is offered one last job opportunity that would give him the ability to see his kids again, he goes for it. This isn’t any type of extraction, though, as instead of stealing an idea from someone’s head, he has to plant one.

Just to start this review off, it goes without saying (if you’ve seen the movie or heard things about it) that this is really more of a movie experience rather than something you try to understand fully and completely, at least on first viewing. Christopher Nolan has even stated that you aren’t supposed to take this movie in as if it were a puzzle to solve, and instead, you kind of have to go with the emotions of it rather than the logic. I made the mistake on my first viewing of trying to understand what was going on, and was completely lost, so I didn’t really get much out of the film. However, on this viewing, I found it quite an impactful and poignant film.

The emotional core of the story is certainly Dom Cobb’s whole storyline, and his wanting to get back to his kids. Little by little, the film reveals information about why he isn’t able to see them, and it becomes more and more intriguing and emotional along the way. This is the main part of the central story that is fairly easy to understand, and it’s really interesting because it’s all revealed through the dream sequences, as well as through the perspectives of other characters’ subconsciouses. Dom Cobb’s storyline isn’t the only poignant thing about Inception, however, as there are other themes of healing and purpose when it comes to other characters that really hit hard.

Just as we’ve come to expect from Christopher Nolan nowadays, even one of his earlier films, like this one, still has fantastic visuals. Not only is the CGI, when it is used, flawless, but there are multiple “world-bending” scenes during the dream sequences that create imagery almost impossible to forget. Adding onto that, there are also some pretty unique “visual paradoxes,” or optical illusions, that get me every time they are used throughout the course of the runtime. My favorite sequence when it comes to the visuals, though, has to absolutely be the hallway scene; if you’ve seen this movie and don’t know how they pulled that off, I would absolutely highly recommend watching the behind-the-scenes footage on that.

To cap off this part of the review, while Inception is inherently confusing, I do think that Christopher Nolan did a pretty incredible job of creating a sort of “dream system” that is fairly clear and concrete. It’s kind of like the concept of “hard fantasy” in comparison to “soft fantasy,” where the rules are much more clearly defined. Of course, the rules are given pretty much all through exposition, but just like in every Christopher Nolan movie, the dialogue is great, so the exposition never becomes tedious to listen to.

When it comes to the mixed, I think you can already guess what it is, as I’ve already talked about it quite a bit, but it goes without saying that because this movie is designed to be more of an emotional experience rather than a logical one, it’s certainly not going to be for everyone. Just like I did on my first viewing, if you go into it trying to understand it, you are probably going to be lost, frustrated, and bored out of your mind for pretty much the whole movie. A lot of people would see that as a flaw in filmmaking, but I honestly think that it makes for one of the most unique films of the century, and maybe all time.

To cap off this review, to be honest, I don’t really have any negatives with it at all. I think it perfectly achieves what it is trying to do, and is pretty much flawless in that way. However, while I would say that this is one of the most unforgettable movies I’ve ever seen, it’s definitely not one of my favorites - at least not yet. I’ve seen the majority of Christopher Nolan’s films, and to be honest, I think his best works, or at least the ones I prefer, are the ones that more balance emotion and logic (emphasis on “and”), instead of one over the other (like Interstellar, Batman Begins, The Dark Knight). On the other hand, I highly respect this movie, and easily see myself enjoying it more on future rewatches.