Released Year: 2010
Directed by Christopher Nolan
Casted by:
Leonardo DiCaprio as Dominic "Dom" Cobb
Joseph Gordon-Levitt as Arthur
Ellen Page as Ariadne
Ken Watanabe as Mr. Saito
Cillian Murphy as Robert Michael Fischer
Marion Cotillard as Mallorie "Mal" Cobb
Story:
Dom Cobb and his partner Arthur perform illegal corporate espionage by entering the subconscious minds of their targets, using two-level "dream within a dream" strategies to extract valuable information. Dreamers are awakened either by a sudden shock (a "kick"), or by dying in the dream. Each of the extractors carries a totem, a personalized small object whose behavior is unpredictable to anyone except its owner, to determine whether they are in another person's dream. Cobb's totem is a spinning top which perpetually spins in the dream state. Cobb struggles with memories of his dead wife, Mal, who manifests within his dreams and tries to sabotage his efforts.
Cobb is approached by the wealthy Mr. Saito, Cobb's latest extraction target, asking him and his team to perform the act of "inception"; planting an idea within the person's subconscious mind. Saito wishes to break up the vast energy conglomerate of his competitor, the ailing Maurice Fischer, by planting this idea in his son, Robert Fischer, who will inherit the empire when his father dies. Should Cobb succeed, Saito promises to use his influence to clear Cobb of the murder charges for his wife's death, allowing Cobb to re-enter the United States and reunite with his children. Despite Arthur's insistence that inception is impossible, Cobb accepts the job and assembles his team: Eames, an identity forger; Yusuf, a chemist who concocts the powerful sedative needed to stabilize the three-layered shared dream required for inception; and Ariadne , a young architecture student tasked with designing the labyrinth of the dream landscapes. Saito insists on joining the team as an observer and to ensure the job is completed. While planning the inception, Ariadne learns of the guilt Cobb struggles with from Mal's suicide and his separation from his children when he fled the country as a fugitive.
The job is set in motion when Maurice Fischer dies and his son accompanies his father's body from Sydney to Los Angeles. During the flight, Cobb sedates Fischer, and the team bring him into the shared dream. At each stage, the member of the team who is "creating" the dream remains to generate the "kick", while the other team members fall asleep within the dream to travel further down into Fischer's subconscious. The dreamers will then ride a synchronized series of "kicks" (the van plunging off a bridge, a fall between hotel rooms, and a collapsing building) back up the levels to wake up to reality. In the first level, Yusuf's dream of a rainy city, the team successfully abducts Fischer, but the team is attacked by projections of Fischer's 'militarized subconscious', which have been trained to hunt and kill extractors, and Saito is mortally wounded. Due to the strength of Yusuf's sedative, however, dying in the dream will send them into Limbo, a deep subconscious level where they may lose their grip on reality and be trapped indefinitely.
Eames temporarily takes the appearance of Fischer's godfather Peter Browning to suggest that he reconsider his opinion of his father's will. Yusuf remains on the first level driving a van through the streets, while the remaining team members enter Arthur's dream, taking place in a corporate hotel. Cobb turns Fischer against his projection of Browning and persuades him to join the team as Arthur runs point. They descend to the third dream level, Eames' dream, a snowy mountain fortress designed by Ariadne. Fischer is told that it represents Browning's subconscious, but the team is really accessing Fischer's subconscious. Yusuf's evasive driving on the first level manifests as distorted gravity effects on the second, forcing Arthur to improvise a kick using an elevator shaft, and an avalanche on the third.
Saito succumbs to his wounds, and Cobb's projection of Mal sabotages the plan by shooting Fischer, killing him.Cobb and Ariadne enter Limbo to find Fischer and Saito. There, Cobb confronts his projection of Mal, who tries to convince him to stay with her and his kids in Limbo. Cobb refuses and confesses that he feels he was responsible for Mal's suicide. Using inception to help her escape from Limbo during a shared dream experience, he inspired in her the idea that her world wasn't real. Once she had returned to reality, she became convinced that she was still dreaming and needed to die in order to wake up, writing a letter claiming that Cobb was threatening her to try and convince him to accept their dream state and commit suicide with her. Through his confession, Cobb attains catharsis and chooses to remain in Limbo to search for Saito. Eames defibrillates Fischer to bring him back up to the third-level mountain fortress, where he enters a safe room and discovers and accepts the idea to split up his father's business empire.
Leaving Cobb behind, the team members escape by riding the kicks back up the levels of the dream. Cobb eventually finds an elderly Saito who has been waiting in Limbo for decades in dream time (just a short time in real time), the two help each other to remember their arrangement, and the team awakens on the flight. Cobb passes through U.S. customs, and reunites with his children at home, where he uses Mal's totem, a spinning top, to test reality, but is distracted by his children before he can see the result.
L² Scored: 4/10
L² Comment:
OMG~ this is such a heavy movie~ A dream in a dream, or should i say multiple dreams? This is so confuse and i feel so tired after watching the whole movie. Really sorry to say that, i don't like this movie even though i'm a huge fans of DiCarpio~ yawn~
