One has to look no further than at this two and one half hour bag of hot air to understand why American film is on life support. In what would have made for an absorbing thirty minute Twilight Zone episode in the mid sixties has been (through the wonder of technology) turned into a flashy and noisy blockbuster as director Chris Nolan applies lipstick to this pig by the bucket.

Cobb (Leonard DiCaprio) is a dream stealer in a land and time not far from now. He's particularly valuable to corporations keen on getting an edge on competitors but now in order to go legit and see his kiddies again he must do the reverse. Impossible you say, not in Chris Nolan's fantasy land of computer generated gimmickry and circuitous dialog.

Inception's slick dishonesty lies in the parallel universe of the real and unreal worlds Nolan creates in an attempt to humanize its disheveled super hero by giving it a patina of reality and generate sympathy for Cobb. But Cobb along with everyone else acts like a stilted automaton (or Joe Friday from Dragnet) and while it try's redistributing its weight to give balance to the money shots (you know the fireworks) it comes across mawkish and syrupy. The premise itself is hashed and rehashed ad nauseum and so much one gets the idea that the producers are not only attempting to blind with shock and awe but confuse you with non-sequitors in hopes of successfully cloning you to buy another ticket.

Even in the real world it is based Inception remains a fairy tale working off the borderless freedom of fantasy where things don't have to be logical just convenient. Nolan was far more successful in bringing the fantasy reality factor closer together in Insomnia and Memento. There was a grittier tension in these low budgets that Nolan has lost since hitting the big time and having at his disposal a huge budget for all star casts ( mostly wasted in minor roles here) and exotic locales to play out his ideas. These productions (Batmans plus The Prestige) may spare no expense but they lack soul and usually flounder mid way.

While the blame can be clearly affixed to the the shoulders of writer, producer, director Nolan I would be remiss not to acknowledge cinematographer Wally Pfister's murky and dull compositions and Hans Zimmers relentless music score which plays like a leaky faucet throughout the entire film. Like an IV it attempts to transfuse suspense into the plot with an annoying undercurrent and the occasional crash of brass.