It goes without saying that the special effects are one of the highlights of Inception. This will probably be The Matrix of our time, but in a much subtler way. As Dom says, “It’s only when you wake up that you realize there was something strange.” This strangeness is embraced and pulled throughout the film. However, the mazes, infinite staircases, and alternate realities these special effects create are not limited to just providing an aesthetic wonder, but they serve to symbolically reinforce many of the main issues of the film. The paradox of an infinite staircase will be itching your brain for a few hours after you finish watching.

The performances are pitch perfect. I initially thought that the characters were a bit one- dimensional and not incredibly developed. Don’t be alarmed though. Nolan hasn’t lost the touch that created his Batman and his Joker. I believe there are deliberate reasons for this lack of background, which will surely feed into the theorists that will begin sprouting all over the internet after this weekend. Leonardo DiCaprio and Marion Cotillard provide the emotional and narrative center of the film. Being the Oscar winning and nominated actors they are, these roles are played beautifully. It’s as if they don’t even realize they’re the ones we’re all focused on.

I’ll end this now before I start confusing myself even more. It’s a privilege, though, to see an auteur like Christopher Nolan working today, using the summer blockbuster as his medium. You’ll leave the theater feeling as if you just “witnessed” something.

Greengrass and DP Barry Ackroyd have recreated a tremendously authentic Iraq; the numerous wide shots are simply splendid, assumingly using understated CGI to give it a gritty, war-torn atmosphere. When in close quarters the resonant sound design – punching gunfire, scratchy voices over the comms, thumping footsteps, humming of distant helicopters – that accompanies the intense set pieces add an additional level of immersion that’ll have you on the edge of your seat. The action itself is of the same high standard we have come to expect from Greengrass: fast, hard-hitting, unrelenting, genuine and exhilarating. Whether on foot or on wheels, Greengrass has a deft touch for creating suspenseful and convincing sequences that feel exactly like they would if occurring in real life.

If the story strikes you as slightly idealistic – all characters here are depicted as a clear cut good or bad, no ambiguity at all – that’s because it is. The protagonist Miller is the main focus of the piece and as such is given that extra profundity not afforded to the others and Damon reliably makes the most of this, delivering yet another solid performance. The rest of the cast are chiefly one-dimensional, but let’s face it, how much more fun is it when the hero screws over the political scoundrel or the haughty Special Forces Captain when we know without doubt they’re bad people? It’s credit to the seasoned talent of Isaacs, Gleeson and Kinnear that they provide entertaining caricatures that sneer, growl and smarm all in the right places.

The central problem with the story is its appalling lack of originality. The plot, and moment after moment in this film, is ripped from previous movies with reckless abandon. No person who has seen such movies as Dances with Wolves, the Last Samurai, Pocahontas (Dis.) or any number of other movies should be surprised at any part of the story here. The plot is simply an excuse to string together a beautiful canvas of rich, detailed digital fantasy art. Soldiers are portrayed here either as self-hating pansies or narrow-minded bad asses. The Na’vi are portrayed as a race in perfect balance with the world around them, rather than as products of natural selection with their own defects. Count me as someone who wanted to see a story which had real characters with real people in them, or a twist in the story I didn’t see coming. I have a few moral qualms with the story as well, which plays out not as a message about tolerance of differences or peaceful coexistence, but as a racist ballad where the sacred Na’vi have been perverted by contact with the infernal humans and it is the humans that need to be eradicated or exiled.

This is a movie you will want to see if eye-popping visuals and vivid detail at all appeal to you. But if you’re looking for a compelling story that you haven’t seen before, look elsewhere. As sci-fi, District 9 is a much better movie, and I would say even Star Trek has the edge on a compelling story line.

There are scenes and individual shots that pop with ethereal beauty. It’s worth seeing for that reason, but I don’t think it’ll be as fun after multiple viewings. The great thing about “Star Wars” was the characters: Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Princess Leia, R2-D2, Darth Vader, Obi-Wan Kenobi, Yoda and so on. They embodied the other-worldliness of the story, taking the weight off the effects.

In thirty-two years, I don’t think anyone will remember “Jake Sully.”

The movie is broken up into five chapters and for the whole two and a half hour running time, I never took my eyes off the screen. Not during the brutal violence, the bloody climax or the scenes of teeth-cringing suspense. This is a filmmaker that knows how to get an audience’s attention and keep it for the entire film.

The movie’s brilliant opening scene introduces the memorable character Hans “The Jew Hunter” Landa, played with so many emotions by the relatively unknown Austrian actor Christoph Waltz. In this first chapter, Landa enters the home of a dairy farmer named Perrier LaPadite and conducts a subtle interrogation that eventually gets the job done. He finds the Jews and takes them out…but one, named Shosanna (Mélanie Laurent), escapes.

In the second chapter, we are greeted with a long, expertly-written harangue delivered by the audacious and hysterical Lt. Aldo Raine (Brad Pitt). Pitt is assembling a team of Jewish American soldiers whose mission is to scalp as many Nazis as possible. In fact, Raine actually demands 100 Nazi scalps from each member of the squad. Needless to say, they pass the test with flying colors. Arguably the most outrageous member of the crew, besides Raine, is Sgt. Donny Donowitz (Eli Roth), better known as “The Bear Jew”. He spends his days beating Nazi soldiers to death with a bat. And they all love it.

After we meet the Basterds, we find Shosanna a couple years later, now living under the name of Emmanuelle Mimieux, as the owner and operator of a cinema which has been chosen by her somewhat stalker friend Frederick Zoller (Daniel Brühl) to premiere a feature film titled A Nation’s Pride, which chronicles Zoller’s unbelievable experience of killing 300 enemy soldiers by himself over the course of three days.

There are many more characters to meet in this film, such as the German actress, double agent named Bridget von Hammersmark (Diane Kruger), Lt. Archie Hicox (Michael Fassbender), and Hugo Stiglitz, played by Til Schweiger. It would take too much to explain all of these stories in this short review, and you might seem lost already, but in this film Tarantino weaves this story as good as any story he’s written before. Everything comes together beautifully and it is perfectly entertaining throughout.

Tarantino writes this film in an alternate history of World War II, which gives him complete freedom, and it certainly pays off. He doesn’t want this to be “just another WWII film.” He is creating a clever and completely original experience of a topic that has been filmed what seems like over a million times.

The performances that Tarantino gets in this film are all stunning. Even the actors that are in the movie for only one or two scenes create characters that are fully memorable, which is also credit to the script. Waltz’s performance is undoubtedly the stand-out, not only because Waltz is terrific, but also because he is the most fascinating character on the page as well. The writer-director created a character that needed a big-time performer, and Waltz delivers. He turns in a performance that is hilarious, frightening, devilishly cunning, and it will certainly not be forgotten come Award season. Brad Pitt’s performance is also very well done. Even though his character basically only hits one note the entire film, he manages to make every note funny and entertaining.

This is a film that has Tarantino written all over it. In some parts, you will be repulsed by the graphic violence, and in others, entranced in the dialogue that is absolute genius. From top to bottom, it is the best experience I’ve had at the theater the whole year. Sure, it’s a little too long and a little too violent in places. But, who really cares? I am judging the movie as a whole, and it is undoubtedly four- star experience. And sometimes a four-star experience is better and more refreshing than a four-star film.