Movie Review of "Inception"

I struggled with myself for three weeks on whether or not I should go to the theater to see Christopher Nolan's (The Dark Knight and Batman Begins) movie "Inception." The reason that I was hesitant was because of the confusing trailer that I had seen and also because of the "what's going on here" movie "Shutter Island," which Leonardo DiCaprio also starred in. After seeing the movie this weekend my suspicions were confirmed.

For those of you who have not seen the movie (as well as for those of you who have), I will try to provide a brief synopsis. The term "Inception" means the beginning of something, according to Webster's dictionary. In this case it is being able to begin a thought or alter someones thought process during the dream state. The plot of the story involves a thief (DiCaprio) who specializes in a process called "extraction" (stealing secrets from the subconscious). DiCaprio is introduced to a wealthy Japanese businessman named Saito (Ken Watanabe), who wants Dicaprio to practice his inception skills on a competitor (Cillian Murphy-The Scarecrow from Batman Begins) in order to break up his multi-billion dollar energy firm. DiCaprio agrees to take on the job and assembles of team of "dream weavers" to try get inside Murphy's head to see what's going on. This is where you get lost. The team gets induced into a dream, along with Murphy and they go on this ridiculous adventure, complete with car chases and gun play. Not only do you not know what's going on, they supposedly go into a dream within a dream to complete their mission. Then they go into a dream, within a dream, within another dream. If this doesn't make your head spin, I don't know what will.

I have to say that the acting in the movie was actually pretty good and the special effects were outstanding, but if I want to sit around for several hours trying to figure out what is going on, I might as well stay home and get drunk (it's cheaper).

(2 stars out of 5)