While it seems ingenious to invent a cunning conceit such as the one deployed in this film it is like a novel that uses neologisms and errant grammar and punctuation: it's effects tire and it seems less than it wishes it to be.

The dramaturgy and logic of Inception is very simple and relies on a 'reductio' argument which is quite clear within 10 minutes,(and is absurd because of the logical impossibility of the argument itself like Wittgenstein's proof against skepticism) but it's true failing is not that: it is in fact the use of change and sudden effects as plot devices because once employed they heighten awe but kill any suspense or connection with the characters in the film. There is no reason or emotion in caring about characters that are chaff in a rather ordinary logician's game.

Years ago Thomas Pynchon was considered an important writer, and the author and critic (and sometime film critic) Peter Ackroyd wrote an astute review of his major work, "Gravity's Rainbow", in which he ridiculed the ease of such writing; it's deceptive cleverness; it's egoism, and its immaturity because it is so overtly obvious, and like anything childish, of no real lasting interest artistically.

Inception is that too. Instantly forgettable.