You know that eerie change in state from sleep to wake you experience every morning? Inception's intro shot does a great job invoking it while washing you up on the shorelines of its dreamy story. Too soon, however, the filmmaking becomes rather mechanical, tossing around its take on the dream world v. reality, but offering up no emotional connection. Since we neither know, nor care about these characters, the bang-bang shoot-shoot feels uninspired, making the dream premise a lame excuse for action.

(Though it could have easily been a detail forgotten by the dream architect, Japanese wood castles were built purposely with creaky floorboards to alert guards of intruders.)

Fortunately, the "B- movie feel" lasts only about 20 minutes. A tolerable amount of exposition (broken up and distributed among the players) brings the audience up to speed on dream-treading rules. Better still, we get a glimpse into DiCaprio's personality issues. These traits make him compellingly mysterious, and us sincerely curious. That curiosity is rewarded with more emotional information as the tale spins. Before we know it, we've been reeled into a dream within a dream. It's a world where the main character isn't sure what's real and what's not. (Kudos to Nolan for writing in the "todem." It provides a brilliant tangible handle to a heady story.)

The film offers action, drama, intellectual challenge, and surreal special effects. All deliver, albeit hit & miss (mostly hit). Because the last action scenario (arctic terrain) misses (reminding us of the earlier B- quality of the picture), some might leave the theatre completely unimpressed with the action. That wouldn't be fair. The van-roll-hotel-hallway scene is a thing of visual and visceral beauty. It builds with confidence, and stirs tension and unbalance. Upon its completion, you'll want to stand up and applaud.

On the whole, I enjoyed this picture. But, the imperfections hold its grade to a strong B+. Btw, as a guy who's written a trilogy also based on a character who has problems telling reality from dream, I've got some opinions regarding this film's intent and ending, but I'll keep my mouth shut as not to spoil. If you're curious of my thoughts, write in and ask.

-- Books by Author/Illustrator Ross Anthony --