Just got back from seeing this at the cinema the cinema. My personal thoughts? (Don't worry, it's spoiler free, although its a total wall of text, so I'll be surprised / impressed if it gets read in its entirety by many people.)
It's good. It certainly isn't bad. The story's direction and eventual conclusion was ultimately predictable right from the beginning (an unfortunate side-effect of currently popular story-telling conventions), but the way in which the characters reached that eventual conclusion certainly wasn't.
On an emotional level, Inception felt like it was a far simpler movie than it could have been, or should have been. I simply do not buy into the main character's "closure" near the end of the movie. I might just need to mull over it more, but something felt like it was missing there - a concrete and acceptable answer, a believable reason.
There was so much more room for the supporting character to grow, but for the most part, It seemed to me that they served little purpose to the story beyond being a convenient means to push the plot in the direction that it needed to go. This is a poor use of a supporting case. They're meant to support you, not carry you.
The dream world felt like it could have been far more visually out there than it was. What they did show was well conveyed, but I always had the nagging feeling in my minds eyes that there could have been so much more to it, so much more untapped potential for the idea.
Then again, dreams are an extremely complex concept and are, by their very nature, infinite in possibilities, so maybe it's simply something that could never been satisfactorily expressed in the visual medium, because of our own personal knowledge and experiences of the world of dreams. Sandman did it better, that's all I say.
I found the best imagery was in the starting half of the movie, the most diverse and intriguing. The biggest let down was the army base. It felt like an entirely contrived and unoriginal metaphor.
The acting of the ensemble cast was solid despite their lack of influence and emotional involvement with the story, and DeCaprio has always been a great performer... in the right roles. This was one of those roles.
I hope there isn't a sequel, simply because I *want* that ending to be left open to interpretation. It's one of the best movie endings I've seen in quite a while, and it is the one part of the movie that will be remembered by all who watch it. It is the one truly defining and perfectly realised moment of the whole movie.
Everyone will be discussing *that* one moment after watching this film. There's no doubt about that.