Highly recommended. Playing now at Rubys Cinema.

Inception is back for a 10th anniversary cinema re-release, acting as a tempting teaser to the release of “Tenet” from acclaimed director Christopher Nolan.

Provided you enjoy well made thoughtful films, with a generous mix of Sci-fi and Thriller genres, just go watch it on the big screen now.

Want to know more, keep reading….Leonardo DiCaprio, plays “Cobb” an expert thief within peoples dreams.

Sounds weird? Then add another seemingly impossible step, deliberately planting a thought in someones subconscious, causing them to act on their “own” idea, the Inception of the title.

Audiences need to concentrate, the film assumes a Matrix style awareness of an alternate world as a starting point. At one point three, four or maybe even five steps removed from the reality in which the film commences.

Just when you think this cannot go deeper without your head exploding, Nolan manages to go further. Amazingly and most satisfyingly, still managing to bring you back safely. Finishing with a rewarding ending, where a spinning top has never held such significance.

The world around the characters, bends, turns and morphs as dreams change shape. Notably a sequence in “France” with streets twisting on themselves as cafes explode in slow motion, with fight scenes in zero gravity inside revolving rooms.

Cobb’s “Dream team”, if you will, “Arthur” (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Ariadne (Ellen Page), Eames (Tom Hardy), Ysuf (Dileep Rao) are employed by Saito (Ken Watanabe) to influence businessman Fischer (Cillian Murphy), in the direction his company will take in the future.

This is achieved by entering Fischer’s induced dreams during a ten hour flight and interacting with him, within an architectural landscape of the teams invention.

Time slows down in dreams, ten minutes in real life, three hours in a dream, three days in the dream within a dream until ten minutes might be thirty years in level five. Of course if it goes wrong, you may never make it back.

Complicating matters further, Cobb has issues of his own. His wife Mal (Marion Cotillard) and children are ultimately at stake in a high risk game the team have no idea they are playing.

Once in the dream, the team are destined to fight against Fischer’s subconscious defenses represented by an endless supply of “bad guys”, with the tension on several layers of dreams slowly ratcheted up to impossible limits.

The acting is first rate with the direction, sets and style all glorious to watch, with DiCaprio bringing much needed warmth and humanity to what could have been a sterile character.

The action is brilliantly staged, combining blockbuster “James Bond” style thrills and set pieces, within a story much like a Babushka Russian Doll, each opening to reveal another inside and so on, until the truth, if there is such a thing, is revealed.

Downsides are difficult to find, a movie demanding audiences come along for the ride, repaying the attention you are prepared to invest.

Summary

Nolan remains the “go to” director for intelligent, thought provoking but hugely entertaining blockbusters.

Arguably the most talented and inventive director working today and despite being ten years old, this is outstanding film-making on every level.

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