Inception

Leonardo DiCaprio and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, with accomplices Ken Watanabe,  Ellen Page and Tom Hardy, insert ideas and invade peoples' dreams and those of each other in 'Inception'

Time and place are flexible so that the characters can be travelling on the bullet train in Japan one minute and be walking the boulevardes of Paris the next, or at a cafe in Mombasa or standing in the middle of eerily vacant streets in Los Angeles.

DiCaprio is in search of something and someone and is haunted by the presence of Marion Cottilard.

'Inception' is a very modern film and fully in colour but it commences with the Warner Bros logo in black and white. I wondered about this and whether the 1940s references it evoked were deliberate or just in my imagination. Hardy's clothing was also reminscent of the era as was the sometimes snappily but meaningless portentious dialogue. At those moments I half expected Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall to step in.

The film employs the in-joke of an Edith Piaf song being the dream starter, Cottilard having won the Academy Award for her performance as Piaf in 'La Vie En Rose'.

'Inception' is this year's 'Avatar'. Some visually stunning images peppering many incomprehensible moments.

I quite enjoyed the film once it got into it's stride but I felt it was about twenty minutes too long. I imagine that virtual life participants will love it.