There are very few film directors in this world that are allowed to pitch a complex and completely original concept to a studio and walk away with a budget of $160,000,000 and make it, that said your name is, Christopher Nolan and your last movie was ‘The Dark Knight’, that in 2008 broke all box office receipts, so exception granted.

With Inception Nolan invites you into the world of the dream to explore alternate realities where the rules don’t exist and whilst all this sounds intriguing, Inception is essentially at it’s core is a classic and perfect heist story.

Nolan ensembles a stellar cast to play out this story but it DiCaprio who gives an astonishing almost effortless like performance and his best since Blood Diamond to steal the show. He is backed up by his right hand man, the Organiser Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), Forger (Tom Hardy) who gives a humorous performance. Marion Cotillard gives the film its emotional weight playing Cobb’s wife Mal. Ellen Page finally manages to step out from under her Juno stereotype, playing the Architect who is suspicious of Cobb’s motives. Then there are the Nolan regulars of Cillian Murphy, Ken Watanabe and Michael Caine, the latter of who is vastly underused but nevertheless is still a pleasure to watch.

The visual effects in ‘Inception’ stop nothing short of breathless and are of the original kind that haven’t been since like the Matrix, where you have exploding buildings, folding cities to zero-gravity suspended bodies. If that’s not enough, there is also one sequence that brings to the mind a James Bond movie, with Cobb’s team members decked out in matching winter gear and skis, fighting their way across a snowy landscape. All the time these effects beat out to a pulsating Hans Zimmer score.

Inception is bold, inventive and whilst the outline is complex that will demand your full attention throughout, it’s not confusing, which many people seem to think it is. Nolan’s has crafted another masterpiece in Inception, where it perfectly balances sc-fi with thriller and will take multiple viewings to fully appreciate its genius and beauty.