Inception

"I think they were going for a " how far does the rabbit hole go?" concept, and they may have gotten just a tad bit carried away." I love this line a friend used to describe this film. I went to see it with so much anticipation having read the incredible reviews only to find myself looking around the cinema half way through wondering if I was the only to notice that the Emperor really wasn't wearing any clothes. This is exactly how I felt for 148 rather painful minutes as the film's plot thickened and got progressively ridiculous.

The concept of the power of dreams makes sense to me as I'm sure it does to most of us who've often been freaked out by how real things seemed during a dream, so they definitely had me on that. The premise for the mission however was where I thought - are you kidding me? So Leo and pals needed to get into the mind of a powerful businessman to get him to break up his company. Call me naive but why go through all that when you can try good ole fashioned threat of violence or blackmail or if you want to do things the legal way then why not just set him up with a gorgeous gal who he'll fall head over heels for and who can then manipulate him into doing exactly what she wants. Trust me, it works a treat, ask any man with a wife.
Aside from the multiple layers which made the film lose its credibility, I also didn't understand the need for ridiculously gratuitous shooting and bullet-dodging. I felt like I'd mistakenly stumbled into an action flick, where the baddies far outnumber the good guys but never seem to be able to accurately shoot and kill one of them. In a word, it was all a bit too Hollywood for me.
At the end of my torturous cinema trip and just because I hate feeling like the only one who didn't get memo, I decided to ask a few people what they thought and the responses varied from looks of bewilderment to outright confessions of "I didn't get it."
So what were the directors thinking? Apparently the trick is to confuse the hell out of the audience so they have to go back and watch the film again and again...repeatedly lining the already wealthy film makers' and stars' pockets. Hmm, genius really....except for one thing ... why on earth would we, the cinema-goers knowingly put ourselves through another two and a half hours of far-fetched nonsense? Or maybe the ploy is to enter into our dreams and convince us this is a brilliant film. Now that, I'd pay again to see you do Mr DiCaprio.