Inception: Dream-within-a-dream-within-a-dream

Mind-boggling and visually arresting, Christopher Nolan's Inception deals with the complexity of dreams and the subconscious. It centers on Cobbs (Leonardo de Caprio), a specialist in industrial espionage, who penetrates other people's dreams. Together with his cool gang of dream-walkers known as 'extractors', they try to persuade a young business tycoon (Cillian Murphy) to break up his father's wide conglomerate for the sake of global peace. Cobb's personal issues, however, put a crimp in their plan as her wife (Marion Cotillard) keeps on appearing in his dreams.

With its breathtaking cinematography, "Inception" is supposedly mind-blowing. But I was hardly blown away, if truth be told. Yes, it features fights that literally defy gravity and effects that are completely enthralling - that Parisian neighborhood ascending like a drawbridge is simply spellbinding. I find the film's take on dreams too literal and scientific. Maybe, I expected a Lynchian approach.

Keeping track of all the simultaneous realities intersecting and converging with dreams seems to be an impossible task. The film demands second viewing if you're intent on understanding its complicated subplots. It's intellectually provocative, no doubt about that, though it doesn't answer all the riddles. Not that it has to, but somehow it makes the film look like it's created mainly to be admired. I could imagine Nolan smirking while audience wrack their brains to solve a riddle that doesn't even exist.