Over the past decade I've seen Christopher Nolan's Inception around 5 or 6 times now. I've seen it multiple times, because I feel I must be missing something when so many others claim this is his masterpiece, whilst I can honestly take it, or leave it. I've seen all of Nolan's work and while I believe he is a truly gifted and creative film- maker, I believe Inception is seriously over rated. Here's why.

As with many of his movies, technically, it can't be faulted. It looks and sounds a treat and is filled with some great sequences, just like a movie such as The Matrix Reloaded. That had some terrifically filmed sequences too, but just like Inception, wasn't a great movie ... which reminds me. Those Nolan disciples who think Inception doesn't borrow heavily from ideas floated in The Matrix are just kidding themselves. Watch The Matrix (by far the best of its trilogy, just like Batman Begins is the best of its series), then watch Inception and you'll see what I mean.

My main issue with Inception is the storyline and characterisations lack balance. It's a long movie (and after repeated viewings, I have to say the time doesn't skip by) with lots of relatively important support characters, who are required to flesh out the narrative yet the only ones we ever get to know are Cobb and (versions of anyway) Mal. And I have to say that by the end of the movie, I'm totally over knowing anything more about Cobb and Mal's (surely symbolic of Malware) generally toxic relationship.

Arthur seems to have some sort of partner arrangement with Cobb. Yet, even in a two and a half hour feature, nothing is ever made really clear about it. It just seems to exist and Arthur just kind of magically does stuff. Same with Ariadne, a graduate student of architecture who is recruited to construct the various dreamscapes, which are described as mazes. Where did she learn all these skills, that we never actually see her do (apart from scribble on a piece of note-paper, once or twice)? At university with Professor Miles? Same with Eames, who has some kind of mysterious ability to impersonate others, even going as far as talking like them, after he puts a bag over his head, then re-emerging to look and sound like Tom Berenger.

I could go on, but I think most get the picture. If Quentin Tarantino had directed Inception we would have found out more about some of these intriguing support characters, because Quentin likes his support characters. In Inception we get zilch, except more and even more (at different sub-conscious levels) of Cobb's and Mal's seemingly never-ending story. (Like Ariadne, I 'd heard and seen enough well before the conclusion.)

It's disappointing too, that for such a well produced film, Inception has too rely on some of the age old contrivances to get by. There's virtually no exposition on the extraction/inception technology that Cobb and Artur specialise in. How did they develop their skills? As always, the bad guys (or dream security protection individuals) can't shoot straight. A bunch of them with automatic weapons blast a vehicle nearly to pieces at point blank range and only Saito gets wounded? In a stair well scene later in the movie, Arthur is fired at (again with an automatic weapon) with multiple rounds from a few metres away and is left unscathed? Yusef's van, continually mega shot up and none of those sleeping people or Yusef hit? Just accept it, in the interest of supposedly brilliant film-making and move on.

Inception is a multi-layered, technical marvel of a film, written and directed by a great film-maker, but this is definitely not Chris Nolan's finest cinematic moment. Inception isn't a dud but nor is it a masterpiece. It's like a very ambitious, overlong pulp fiction piece: visually beautiful, ingenious in parts and dragging in others. I'm amazed how how inconsistant the story feels to me, even after multiple viewings and how boring and poorly written, so many of the characters in the movie are depicted as being. It's almost enough to send me to sleep. I give it a 6.5 /10.