I’ve thought about the film a lot since I saw it a few weeks ago. It’s a lot of film to think about, at 2½ hours long, it feels double that. Most 2½ hour films would spend that time dossing about, showing extended landscape shots of trees, a warm (you imagine) breeze racing through their leaves, coarsely smothering that overused bit of Hans Zimmer music that makes everyone think of Gladiator over the top, like grating parmesan over pasta with a spoon. They’d be slow, heavy, and ‘Beautiful’. “Well not MY movie” Director, Christopher Nolan (Batman Begins, Dark Knight)’s eyes seem to say. “Not Inception”. Yes it’s 7 hours long! Yes Odeon will have to break the rules of employment by keeping an army of Gel-haired, hormone ravaged teenagers moping around the foyer, seeing how much Pic’n’Mix they can steal before their boss (Gary from 6th form) catches them, until 6am, but who the fuck cares? It’s got guns, sexy ladies (one who looks sort of under age, but in that sort of ‘all right cos she’s not really under age, she’s just ‘cute’ sort of way), car chases, and that kid from 3rd Rock from the Sun looking just as weird as he did back when you thought it made sense because he was an alien.

It’s also got Cillian Murphy.

Sorry... I meant to say something else, something interesting. It’s also got Leonardo DiCaprio! Don’t feel bad Murphy, I like you, honest I do, it’s everyone else who’s the collective idiot. They’re all in love with bloody Lenny God knows why, what’s he ever done for the world (apart from possibly saving it in Body of Lies)? The trouble with Leo, and his current crop is that he’s too clever for his own good, and he’s not smart enough to pull it off. He’s got to a point in his life now where he can do pretty much whatever the fuck he likes. And what he ‘likes’ is to make people think he’s serious, probably because he still (despite being 56) looks 14½ years old, and needs to make everyone think he’s an adult. But like triplets precariously standing on eachother’s shoulders inside an oversized raincoat, it never seems to come off. He only goes for films with a ‘twist’. A little clever bit either in the middle, or the end where he seems to look into the camera, and your soul, and give a dirty little smirk and say ‘See? Did you get that? Want me to rewind it for you? Weren’t expecting that were you!’ (SPOILER: His wife’s actually DEAD!... Wait.. HE KILLED HER! ... HE DIDN’T KILL HER!... HE’S BEEN IN LIMBO BEFORE!... HE’S STILL DREAMING!!!!!!!!!!!!). Inception wants to be Sixth Sense, only the difference between Inception and Sixth Sense, is that Inception also wants to be Transporter 3. And it can’t do both. If you’re gonna have clever little twists all over the shop, clues hidden in the background and the screenplay as to what’s really going on, you need to hide them where they can be found. When the reel’s running with shot changes every couple of frames, and a scene change every half second, these subtleties become lost in the blurred background. Besides this... what sort of film would aspire to be either Sixth Sense, OR Transporter 3?

Sure enough, Inception is way better than both put together, I’d happily watch it again and again, and when I inevitably get the DVD it’ll be the sort I do watch again, not the sort sitting on the shelf making me look clever (although it might unwittingly do that as well). I’ve heard talk about people needing to see it twice just to understand what the frick was going on. I don’t get that at all. The plot’s actually very very simple. What’s NOT simple, is at which point in the plot (and indeed space and time) they’re in at any given moment. Everytime there’s a shot change - which as I’ve said is every half a frame (1/50th of a second) – you need to re-asses your surroundings... ‘OK, so this is Level 2... and we’re at the point where they’ve got to move the bomb... and they’ve got 10 minutes... meanwhile Level 1 are still here, they’re safe for the moment, don’t need to worry abou... Oh shit... I’ve missed 230 different plot developments’ – having to do this constantly during simultaneous car/ski chases and wire fights for 2 hours, gets a bit tiring. It’s like being forced to work on an almost unsolvable Rubik’s Cube for 3 hours, then right at the end you realise the colours don’t add up.

Speaking of that infamous ‘last scene’, Nolan has said in interviews that he purposely left the ending open to individuals’ respective interpretations. Open or closed, I just wish he wouldn’t have left it pointing so heavily in the ‘It was all a dream’ quart of the Twister board. It makes for some annoying conversations with idiots. I awoke from a slumber the other day, and experienced what can only be described as an epiphanic clarity of its meaning. ‘I have to write this down’, I sleepily mumbled to my own being, before falling right back to sleep, forgetting the lot. You don’t need a PhD in String Theory to understand the full intricacies of dream travel, but you do need a pad and pen by your bedside.