I didn't find the film confusing at all. I'll admit, if I had zoned out I would have been lost, but I managed to pay attention the entire time. In other words, get some coffee at the concession stand. At its roots, Inception is one of those "Was it only a dream?" movies like Total Recall and like Existenz. I knew what the last shot was going to be as soon as they introduced DiCaprio's totem. It's a brilliant poetic device, and a perfectly ambiguous note to close the movie with.
I'm generally bored with chase sequences, especially when they involve cars and machine guns, but there is one in Inception that managed to get my blood pumping. DiCaprio is being pursued by bad guys through the streets of Morocco, and the camera work is kinetic, the music is unbelievable, and so many bad guys are jumping out of the woodwork around him, that I was actually on the edge of my seat. There is even the nightmare scenario of running down an increasingly narrow alley until, at its end, you can hardly squeeze through. I'm not sure if this alley was created for the movie, or if it was the luck of the filmmakers to find it, but it is one of many throwaway details that add to Inception's fun.
I could criticize the film for its Bond film tendency to set itself in various exotic locales, but it's hard to argue with a film that takes place 90% or 100% inside someone's dreams. Also, upon reflection, the training sequence between DiCaprio and Page was entirely expository, especially since Page does little in the way of using her architectural skills later on, and serves mostly as DiCaprio's guardian angel. (It is very similar to the training sequence in The Matrix.)
This film has the best cast of any film this summer. DiCaprio and Marion Cotillard had me fully invested in their dramatic back story. To Nolan's credit, Cotillard is never photographed like a real person, but more like the cover of a romance novel. There is a haunting quality about her performance that is suitable to the material. Joseph Gordon-Levitt keeps winning me over, and here plays a bad-ass who, despite the increasingly deep shit DiCaprio gets them into, never loses his cool. Cillian Murphy starts out as a reptilian businessman, but has a nice scene later on with his father where you see how damaged he has become by adopting his father's habits. DiCaprio himself is very good as the off-kilter leader of these dream invaders, even if he played a similar character earlier this year in Shutter Island.
At any rate, without giving anything away or arguing plot points, let me just say that Inception is a well-oiled machine that uses its $200 million budget a lot better than any other film will this summer. Nolan has gotten away with something here. He has gun battles and chase scenes and explosions - lots of them - as many as in any other action film. But he also has exotic locales, impossible dreamscapes, scenes of powerful emotion, complex characters that you care about, a thought-provoking plot, and twists that you don't see coming. Come for the chase scenes, come for the thrills, come for the plot or the characters or the twists and turns - this film has it all.
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