A devilishly complicated, fiendishly enjoyable sci-fi voyage across a dreamscape that is thoroughly compelling.

—Kirk Honeycutt Hollywood Reporter

...a smartly scripted, big-budget action/heist movie of the sort you'd expect from the director of The Dark Knight.

—Luke Y. Thompson E!

Yes, Inception is a complex thriller, but it's much more than an inventive crime caper, especially in a world where multiplexes are stuffed with rehashed sequels and movies that rely on new technology to create spectacle.

—Jason Morgan filmcritic.com

...[director] Nolan places mind-bending visual effects and a top-flight cast in service of a boldly cerebral vision that demands, and rewards, the utmost attention. Even when its ambition occasionally outstrips its execution, Inception tosses off more ideas and fires on more cylinders than most blockbusters would have the nerve to attempt.

—Justin Chang Variety

...a sublime brain-twister of a movie that plays out so intricately on so many levels simultaneously that a bathroom break comes at your own peril.

—Lou Lumenick New York Post

...an ambitious, mostly dazzling new opus....

—Scott Tobias Onion AV Club

...a tremendously exciting science-fiction thriller that's as disturbing as it sounds. This is a popular entertainment with a knockout punch so intense and unnerving it'll have you worrying if it's safe to close your eyes at night.

—Kenneth Turan Los Angeles Times

The story can either be told in a few sentences, or not told at all. Here is a movie immune to spoilers: If you knew how it ended, that would tell you nothing unless you knew how it got there. And telling you how it got there would produce bafflement.

—Roger Ebert Chicago Sun-Times

Nolan has fashioned a story rich in off-kilter grandeur. But perhaps because we are so engaged in figuring out its plot, Inception doesn't fully connect emotionally. The film is easier to admire than to fully grasp or be moved by it. Still, it's worth surrendering to the dream.

—Claudia Puig USA Today

...an audacious new creation (that) demands further study to fully absorb the multiple, simultaneous stories [director] Nolan finagles into one narrative experience.

—Lisa Schwarzbaum Entertainment Weekly

In this wildly ingen­ious chess game, grandmaster [director] Nolan plants ideas in our heads that disturb and dazzle. The result is a knockout.

—Peter Travers Rolling Stone

...one of the best sci-fi movies of the new century...

—John DeVore Premiere

...Inception succeeds in planting ideas deep in our minds.

—Alynda Wheat People

Depending on your taste for narrative logic, Nolan's penchant for delineating dream states carries either a built-in advantage or a huge liability. If you don?t mind being tossed about in a state of high confusion for 2-1/2 hours, as dreams enfold within dreams and subconscious states are poised in an infinite limbo, then this is your dream movie.

—Peter Rainer Christian Science Monitor

...may not be the ultimate trip, nor even the first Matrix. But Nolan's filmmaking intelligence places him among our most persuasive contemporary fantasists.

—Michael Phillips Chicago Tribune

...though there is a lot to see in Inception, there is nothing that counts as genuine vision. Mr. Nolan's idea of the mind is too literal, too logical, too rule-bound to allow the full measure of madness -- the risk of real confusion, of delirium, of ineffable ambiguity -- that this subject requires.

—A. O. Scott New York Times

...a film that spends so much time explaining--and explaining, and explaining--the rules of its narrative conceit that it fails to either emotionally engage or, except in a few notable spots, viscerally thrill.

—Nick Schager Slant Magazine

It's obvious that [director] Nolan either can't articulate or doesn't believe in a distinction between living feelings and dreams -- and his barren Inception doesn't capture much of either.

—Nick Pinkerton Village Voice

It's obvious that [director] Nolan either can't articulate or doesn't believe in a distinction between living feelings and dreams -- and his barren Inception doesn't capture much of either.

—Nick Pinkerton LA Weekly