"Inception" dazzles as intelligent, dreamy drama

It could have been easy to botch the visuals in "Inception." It could have been easy to let down the public with a movie that was built up as much as "Inception" was.

 Luckily for us, and for Christopher Nolan, the movie delivers. It delivers in spades, actually.

 I suppose I would be partial to this movie because dreams have always been a very real and life-changing event for me. As a matter of fact, I remember the words Abraham Lincoln told me as he was mopping the halls of my junior high school.

 Getting back to the matter at hand, "Inception" was both an illustration of how dreams should be represented and a two-and-a-half hour practice of special effects ranging from simple camera tricks to landscapes being sheared away by apocalyptic winds.

 Simply put, "Inception" is a beautiful movie.

 The entire concept of the movie was the big draw for me, though. Honestly, it should be any filmmaker's dream to create a movie based on the "Inception" formula. Actors must perform well and the scenes can only be "real" to a certain degree. Not real enough so audiences forget the scene is in a dream, though. So, not only can there be action, romance, intrigue and anything else that can be written in, but you can turn cities on itself, create infinite staircases and run along hotel corridor walls while being chased by projections of a person's subconscious.

 "Inception" is a movie about dreams. It's a movie about a team of people who perform "extraction," a form of thievery in which a person infiltrates another's dream to steal information or secrets they lock in their minds. A damn cool concept. "Inception," however, is basically the reverse, in which the infiltrators implant an idea in a target's mind to, well, ultimately change their lives and the way they think forever. No easy task, they assure us. For those of you who have seen Michael Mann's "Heat," think about that. Then add James Bond. Then throw in some Michael Bay-scale special effects and hire M.C. Escher to mix it all up and finish it. Kind of a weird mix, but I think it fits.

 On top of that, Leonardo DiCaprio provides yet another believable performance of a man tortured by his past. I won't give anything away, but it just seems that he's been playing a lot of badasses with skeletons in the closet lately. Joseph Gordon-Levitt, clad in a wardrobe I can only dream of, plays a good right-hand man, if not a little one-dimensional.

 Sadly, with thoughts of DiCaprio and Martin Scorcese's "Shutter Island" still fresh in my mind, seeing DiCaprio lead us into layer after layer of realities and ultimately shattering any sense of comfort you have in thinking you know what's going on, wasn't as profound as it could have been. I blame it on bad timing. If I didn't know who Teddy Daniels was, I would say Dom Cobb was a sad soul with the hooks of his past still anchoring him to a life of regret. But, you know, Teddy Daniels is basically the same person, only a "U.S. mah-shul." It's funny, though, because their complexities are the things that tie them together in such a simple way. No fault of Nolan's though.

 Ellen Page, Tom Hardy, Ken Watanabe and Cillian Murphy all play their parts well. There was a let down, though, in that it seemed like only DiCaprio's Dom Cobb got the fleshing out the movie needed to do. The characters played such an integral part in the unfolding of the movie that I felt they just didn't get the treatment they deserved. The entire reason Watanabe's Saito wants Cobb to perform inception in the first place was only mentioned once in earnest that I counted. So, while I wouldn't raise a fuss over some sort of award for any of the actors and actresses in the film, I would be confused if anyone mentioned the characters’ depth.

 Thankfully, Hans Zimmer was on hand to create a score that does not disappoint, although it shares similarities to the score on "Shutter Island," but, just like Cobb and Daniels, I suppose it's coincidental because they both work well for the respective films.

 I would love to say you should bring a date to this movie, but I personally would have been agitated if someone stole my attention away from the screen for even just a little. It's that splendid. There is a point in the film in which the characters are all racing around but within three layers of the same dream, so they need to work together, although they aren't necessarily even in the same dream. And it's intense. There is a masterful juxtaposition in the scenes, as well. Nothing seems too drawn out and anything you repeatedly see is important. So pay attention, lest you want your mind to be exploding through your skull by details you should have seen earlier that return later.

 While I'm not sure if I agree that it's a 9.4 out of 10 stars like IMDB users seem to think, this movie is something you must not miss. With free reign on "Inception" audiences get to see what Nolan is capable of. For those of you who loved "The Dark Knight," go see “Inception.” Right now. Close out of Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox or Chrome or turn off your iPhone and go see this movie. Despite it not being another "Godfather," it is one of the few movies I don't feel bad about shelling out $11 and almost three hours of my life for.