Inception

Stayed up last night to watch this with the husband.  I've been interested in seeing it for a while, but like a lot of things, hadn't quite gotten around to it.  REALLY glad we decided to catch it, because it's a fascinating flick.  Have any of you seen it?  Leo DiCaprio is a thief who gets contracted to do work inside people's dreams, stealing information right out of their minds with the help of carefully selected teams of other highly imaginative people who can do...well, things like this.  But he's haunted by his beloved wife's suicide, and he can't return back to the States and his young children because he is suspected of her murder.  In failing at one job, trying to get information out of a very wily Japanese businessman who has been trained to militarize his subconscious to make it nigh well impossible to get information out of him, he finds himself with a singular opportunity: if he does something considered impossible for this same businessman, planting (rather than stealing) an idea that takes hold in the mind of a young heir to a huge American business empire whose father has just died, the businessman will arrange it so that Cobb (DiCaprio's character) can finally go home.

The whole film is gorgeous, a multi-layered psychological adventure in which Cobb assembles an expert team to attempt this "inception".  As they descend through multiple layers of the target's subconscious, they discover that there are more dangers to them than the man's militarized projections.  Cobb himself has issues that threaten to destroy them all unless he can confront them in time.

Now, I won't say that this is a completely perfect film.  Some of the pacing is uneven.  There was an earlier section that dragged for me.  But when it really gets going, it's a hell of a ride.  The whole "dream within a dream within a dream" idea is so interesting, as is the way the film deals with the nebulous nature of our own realities.  And the acting is superb.  So many scene stealers.  I had never seen Tom Hardy before, but he's fabulous as a British "forgery" expert who can become anyone in a person's dream.  Funny, dry, and very sexy.  Joseph Gordon-Levitt, too, was awesome as Cobb's competent, self-contained right-hand man.  Ellen Page is always awesome.  Ken Watanabe, Michael Caine, and Leo, who has grown into a fine actor despite the fact that I will never really scrub my brain of him in Titanic...all fantastic.

If you've got two and a half hours to spend, I totally recommend this.  Have any of you seen it?  What did you think?