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OK, so Inception is an unbloggable, unreviewable movie.  Any discussion at all of the movie is a spoiler.  So, if you've seen the movie, come with me one level down in the architecture of the blog to "below the fold."  If you haven't seen the movie, then stop whatever you are doing and go see it.  Now.  But don't read any reviews or talk to anyone about the plot.  Trust me, it's worth your time.  Go.

So, hopefully you agree that Inception is a great movie.  Great actors, though Ellen Page seems sort of wasted here.  I'm glad that she now has a mainstream blockbuster on her resume, but she's a device to move the plot along.  And of course, the mind-bending plot that leaves you awake for hours wondering whether Cobb was awake or not at the end.  All I can say is that I was on the edge of my seat the whole time, and I probably made more involuntary exclamations than in any movie in the recent past.

So, there's a lot on the Internet, if you want to turn your whole life into a search of the truth behind Inception.  Here is a cool article dissecting theories of interpretation and plot holes.  I got there from reading a post by David Kopel on the VC.  I think the most plausible for me are Interpretation #5 (we do see some reality in the movie, but Cobb is still dreaming at the end) and Interpretation #6 (Cobb is in reality at the end).  The author of the article subscribes to Interpretation #1 (it's all a dream; see how things don't make sense).  If you subscribe to Interpretation #1, then there are no plot holes.  Some things don't hang together, but that's how dreams roll.  We are told in the movie that you know you are dreaming when things don't seem quite right.  I see that, but I don't want it to all be a dream, so I'm more happy with thinking that we do see reality (Paris, Mombassa, Japanese train), but either Cobb wakes up at end, or he doesn't.  I personally like to think that he wakes up because that's how I roll.  I have little evidence for this besides the fact that he could see his kids' faces and touch them, which he couldn't do before in his dreams.  But, if it's all a dream, then this could just be how it goes in what is really Level 1, which we don't see a lot of.

But, if it isn't all a dream, then there are some plot holes.  The article picks out some that I had wondered about, and here are some more that I'm thinking about:

Why is Saito so much older than Cobb in limbo?  The article mentions this one, but it still bothers me.  I know that in limbo, time is exponential and so if Cobb got to limbo 5 minutes later than Seito, this could be plausible.  However, the movie is fairly fuzzy on when Saito goes to limbo.  Cobb also doesn't look like he aged at all, or very little.  And flashbacks to Cobb and Mal in limbo show them as ageless, until the end.  So aging and limbo are not sorted out well.  I understand to make a neat opening/closing of the movie, an old Saito is cool, but not sure if it works.  Of all the thiings we as an audience were expected to accept, the time moving at exponentially different rates in all the levels was the one that I had to suspend disbelief on at the end.  The ice world just did not seem to be moving at a faster rate than the limbo.  We don't really see how long Ariadne and Cobb walked around limbo, but it didn't seem to be years.

How does one leave limbo, and if it's as easy as dying, why did Cobb and Mal stay down so long?  The given explanation for this could be because (1) you would have to wait for the sedative to wear off and (2) during that time, you might get confused in limbo about what reality was.  This would account for Cobb and Mal staying so long the first time, and possibly Saito (the tourist), but why would Cobb make limbo sound so frightening to the rest of the crew during the discussion in level 1 when Saito first got shot if he knew how to exit?

Why doesn't Fischer recognize Saito on the plane?  This bothered me, but the article points out that Fischer may have been really uninvolved in the company.  Maybe.

How could Saito really solve Cobb's legal problems in a phone call less than an hour before Cobb has to go through customs?  This may be to me the strongest evidence that either it is all a dream or at least everything from the airplane to Cobb going to his house was still in the dream.

How does the crew "kick" from Level 1 to reality?  When Ariadne jumps from the apartment in limbo, Arthur simulates falling in the hotel elevator, and the van hits the water, they all wake up in what we were told was "Level 1," where they kidnapped Fischer, while he was dreaming.  I understand Cobb and Saito are still in limbo, but how do the rest kick to the plane? 

Why does Cobb wash up on the beach in limbo at the beginning/end?  Cobb already washed up on the beach with Ariadne.  She left him there, in the apartment, with the dead Mal.  He is going to go find Saito.  Why did he have to reenter the water?  Again, I understand that visually it's cool to have the movie open with him washing up on the beach, but I don't understand it.

How did Tom Berenger get so old?  This makes me wonder if I"m not in a dream right now because the last time I saw him in The Big Chill, which seems like yesterday, he was really young. 

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