Only a dream? Nolan’s Inception is heady stuff

Warner Bros executives must be pinching themselves. Could Inception, Christopher Nolan's beguiling and bewildering film about dream states, be this summer's sleeper blockbuster hit? Released nationwide this Friday, the psychological thriller should appeal to a wide audience on many levels - from its smart and moving plot to its stunning photography and A-list ensemble cast.

Of course Nolan, the 39-year-old British director who made his name with his 'film in reverse' Memento (2000), is no stranger to box office success as the man who resurrected the Batman franchise. Nonetheless Inception stands out against the current crop of remakes, reboots and sequels as a particularly brainy blockbuster which has already been dubbed a "metaphysical heist".

Nolan takes the cliche beloved of primary school students and daytime soap scriptwriters, 'And I woke up and it was only a dream', and turns it inside out, subverting it and stretching it across multiple levels of reality.

While the plot takes twists and turns that are as intricate and outlandish as a surreal REM session, the basic storyline involves Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), an agent of a new style of corporate espionage in which ideas are stolen or 'extracted' via dreams. Dom is hired by powerful businessman Saito (Ken Watanabe) to carry out the reverse process - the dream-raider's holy grail of 'inception' which involves planting an idea in another person's mind. 

In classic heist-movie tradition Cobb assembles a team around him that includes Juno star Ellen Page who designs the dream worlds, 500 Days of Summer's Joseph Gordon-Levitt as his fixer, and Bronson's Tom Hardy as a quick-witted forger. Inception's cast also boasts Oscar-winner Marion Cotillard as Cobb's dead wife who haunts both his dreams and waking life and Nolan's Batman Begins and Dark Knight collaborators Cillian Murphy and Michael Caine.

But the biggest acting plaudits have been reserved for DiCaprio, seen in his second career-defining role this year following Martin Scorsese's Shutter Island. As with that film, which also played with ideas of perception and reality, DiCaprio manages to be emotionally intense while making it seem effortless.  

WHAT THE CRITICS ARE SAYING:Nev Pierce, Empire: "With physics-defying thunderous action, heart-wringing emotion and an astonishing performance from DiCaprio, Nolan delivers another true original: welcome to an undiscovered country."  (5/5)

Dave Calhoun, Time Out: "Like all good science-fiction, Inception demands we pay serious attention to pure fantasy on the back of strong ideas and exquisite craft - but it also combines fantasy with real observations about our sleeping lives." (4/5)

Xan Brooks, the Guardian: "The trouble with Nolan's film is that it pulls so many tricks and double bluffs that it is often hard to get your bearings. And so, like the movie's characters, we are left to blunder blindly down the rabbit hole... happily, in the case of Inception, getting lost is half the fun." (4/5)

Justin Chang, Variety: "Because the picture privileges the mind over the heart, Cobb's unresolved guilt, intended as the story's tragic centre, doesn't resonate as powerfully as it should, though the  actors certainly give it their all: Cotillard is a presence both sultry and menacing, and DiCaprio anchors the film confidently, if less forcefully than he did the recent Shutter Island (in which he also played a widower at the mercy of dark visions)." ·