2010 - INCEPTION, is a bloated mess of a film.

A team of crack agents have a machine that will allow them to enter people's dreams and steal ideas floating around in their heads.  This is just another spy thriller wrapped up in pseudo new age dream analysis junk with a lot of special effects thrown in.  Very ambitious and also after a while the dream within a dream within a dream structure is just a gimmick.

Christopher Nolan as the director/writer probably could have used a better director for his story,  he shows absolutely no ability to direct action scenes and while we are on the subject, his screenplay is very long and kind of sloppy.

When Stanley Kubrick did 2001: A Space Odyssey he jumped from the Stone Age to the 21st century in one cut.  Christopher Nolan has to draw things out explaining his world of the future for over an hour.  That's just bad storytelling. 

The cast is the best that money can buy but they really don't seem challenged by the material.  Nolan wants them to play it cool, but cool means kind of boring in this case.   Leonardo DiCaprio can't seem to work up any actual enthusiasm for his part of a cool spy guy and he's no George Lazenby.  And what is the point of Ellen Page?  She continues to get cast in films but she brings absolutely nothing to them.  If you really think about it her role could have been easily eliminated, probably shortening the film by 1/2 hour. 

The biggest problem with Inception is a little TV show from the 1960's called The Twilight Zone.  That show could mix drama, science fiction, fantasy and suspense in under 30 minutes.  Inception waddles along trying to do this for 2 1/2 hours long hours.

If you want to see a film that screws with your brain then rent any Luis Bunuel film.  There was a director who knew how to do this head tripping kind of stuff.

148 poorly paced minutes, written by Christopher Nolan.