Please wake me from this coma

"You said we would grow old together," the evil temptress character repeats throughout Christopher Nolan's sci fi blockbuster, "Inception." And indeed we did, after two hours and forty minutes glued in one place subjected to rambling melodrama, unoriginal shootouts, and a director's delusions of grandeur. Although this movie maintains the characteristic Nolanesque ambiance of "Batman Begins" and "The Dark Knight" -- imagine the vertiginous skyscrapers of a post-modern city cast in charcoal hues, the chic interiors of hyper-riche hangouts, and an enemy base nestled in the snow-burdened Himalayas -- the engrossing sets serve as video game levels instead of places where the overwrought but inherently simplistic plot can develop. Indeed, the layers of the main dream in which most of the movie takes place, which are merely different sets, are called just that -- "levels."

At the beginning of the movie, we learn that people can access each others' dreams using an IV attached to a chemical router in a briefcase. Not only is it possible to steal secrets in the dream state, which is Leonardo DiCaprio's specialty, but it is also possible (so the voodoo masters say) to plant ideas in other peoples' minds. I like the premise a lot. The problem is that the plot becomes redundant, as if Nolan's lack of creativity beyond this intriguing idea camouflages itself in the repetition of a few gimmicks. For one, the dream within a dream gimmick. Yes, yes, we understand that dream states can exist within other dream states, like a Russian nesting doll. But is it necessary to have four of these going on simultaneously -- plus reality!? The dreams themselves are hardly interesting or bizarre enough to approximate actual dreams, let alone $160 million dreams (though I must caution that my dreams are especially random and detailed, as those of you who have heard about Robert Schumann crashing my breakneck game of hopscotch on neon squares in Garman House can attest). But even intentional distortions in Nolan's dreams are relatively blase. Like the street folding upside down, or two mirrors reflecting each others' images (like in a bathroom) until a character decides to shatter one and a new walkway is revealed. Nolan even resorts to Escher's staircase loop that goes both up and down as a novelty (and people had the nerve to "ooh" and "ahh" in the theater at that one!). And then the predictable plot complications that conspire to make everything resolve at the last minute and add a few million more bullets. As much as action flicks need their hordes of villainous gunmen to have the worst aim on the planet, this movie takes that contrivance to an absurd level of poor marksmanship. And the dialogue. The evil temptress character -- who unfortunately is a main plot point -- has exactly two lines, both of which grow wearisome after their first utterance -- "You said we would grow old together" and something else so dull it has already slipped my mind.

"Inception" is a feel-good movie -- you can piece everything together satisfactorily even though events are presented in an intentionally confusing manner, and the final plot twist doesn't leave you with a genuine knot in your stomach. I have to watch Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey" and Tarkovsky's "Solaris" again. Unlike "Inception," which seems to draw from both films, they have the ability to keep me up at night thinking about their unfathomable mysteries. After "Inception," sweet dreams.