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Dom Cobb is a skilled thief, the absolute best in the dangerous art of extraction, stealing valuable secrets from deep within the subconscious during the dream state, when the mind is at its most vulnerable. Cobb’s rare ability has made him a coveted player in this treacherous new world of corporate espionage, but it has also made him an international fugitive and cost him everything he has ever loved. Now Cobb is being offered a chance at redemption. One last job could give him his life back but only if he can accomplish the impossible-inception. Instead of the perfect heist, Cobb and his team of specialists have to pull off the reverse: their task is not to steal an idea but to plant one. If they succeed, it could be the perfect crime. But no amount of careful planning or expertise can prepare the team for the dangerous enemy that seems to predict their every move. An enemy that only Cobb could have seen coming.

Review: “True inspiration is impossible to fake,” explains a character in Christopher Nolan’s existentialist heist film Inception.  If that’s the case, then Inception is one of the most honest films ever made.  Nolan has crafted a movie that’s beyond brilliant and layered both narratively and thematically.  It requires the audience to take in a collection of rules, exceptions, locations, jobs, and abilities in order to understand the text, let alone the fascinating subtext.  Nolan’s magnum opus is the first major blockbuster in over a decade that’s demanded intense viewer concentration, raised thoughtful and complex ideas, and wrapped everything all in a breathlessly exciting action film. Inception may be complicated, but simply put it’s one of the best movies of the year.

As you’ve probably guessed, when I said at the beginning of this review that Inception was the first movie in over a decade to mix breathtaking action with thoughtful subtext, I was referring to 1999’s The Matrix.  The comparisons are inevitable.  Both movies deal with the nature of reality combined with pulse-pounding set pieces that will be included in any action-scene highlight reel.  But The Matrix is a freshman level course compared to the doctorate held by Inception, and it has nothing to do with how far special effects have come in ten years.  It’s about taking multiple genres, settings, ideas, emotions, and questions and weaving them into a rich tapestry that will have folks talking long after the credits roll.  But then you throw in those advanced special effects and you have a summer blockbuster that will blow your mind.

You’ve never seen anything like Inception, and you’ll want to see it again and again.

Rating: A

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Balthazar Blake (Nicolas Cage) is a master sorcerer in modern-day Manhattan trying to defend the city from his arch-nemesis, Maxim Horvath (Alfred Molina). Balthazar can’t do it alone, so he recruits Dave Stutler (Jay Baruchel), a seemingly average guy who demonstrates hidden potential, as his reluctant protégé. The sorcerer gives his unwilling accomplice a crash course in the art and science of magic, and together, these unlikely partners work to stop the forces of darkness. It’ll take all the courage Dave can muster to survive his training, save the city and get the girl as he becomes The Sorcerer’s Apprentice.

Review: Perhaps it’s a hangover from the remarkably imaginative and energetic “Inception,” but nothing in this movie about magic, competently directed by Jon Turteltaub, feels the least bit magical. There is one sequence that pays tribute to the film’s supposed source, the eight-minute “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” sequence in Disney’s 1940 “Fantasia,” starring Mickey Mouse. But, really, every sequence feels like it was based on other movies — from “The Karate Kid” training sessions in magic to the morphing of bugs or infinite granules of dust into evil beings straight out of “The Mummy.”

Baruchel is nicely off-center as a hero, which gives the film a little bite. Molina always is good value, and Kebell displays some wit, but the movie doesn’t ask him to do anything with it. Alice Krige and the alluring Monica Bellucci open and close things as good and evil sorcerers, but because they cohabit the same body at times, one can’t always tell whom to root for.

The movie marks the seventh collaboration between Cage and Bruckheimer, so maybe this represents a phenomenon one can label the Seven Picture Itch: A creative partnership has turned so routine that the roles — and pictures — are all beginning to blend into one.

Where once Cage could play off-center, too, notably in “Con Air,” here there is no spark of inventiveness. His character is all wardrobe, makeup and long, scraggly hair. What has even kept him alive for more than a thousand years? The movie is too lazy and the actor too indifferent even to suggest a reason.

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Chosen for their ability to kill without conscience, a group of killers, some trained and some who are not, must endeavour the alien race of predators that have set out to target them as prey. Dropped into the vast jungle of a distant world, these human predators must learn just who, or what, they are up against, and that their ability, knowledge and wits are tested to the limits in the battle of survival of kill or be killed.

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In a happy suburban neighborhood surrounded by white picket fences with flowering rose bushes, sits a black house with a dead lawn. Unbeknownst to the neighbors, hidden beneath this home is a vast secret hideout. Surrounded by a small army of minions, we discover Gru (voiced by Steve Carell), planning the biggest heist in the history of the world. He is going to steal the moon. (Yes, the moon!) Gru delights in all things wicked. Armed with his arsenal of shrink rays, freeze rays, and battle-ready vehicles for land and air, he vanquishes all who stand in his way. Until the day he encounters the immense will of three little orphaned girls who look at him and see something that no one else has ever seen: a potential Dad. The world’s greatest villain has just met his greatest challenge: three little girls named Margo, Edith and Agnes.

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The world is divided into four kingdoms, each represented by the element they harness, and peace has lasted throughout the realms of Water, Air, Earth, and Fire under the supervision of the Avatar, a link to the spirit world and the only being capable of mastering the use of all four elements. When young Avatar Aang disappears, the Fire Nation launches an attack to eradicate all members of the Air Nomads to prevent interference in their future plans for world domination. 100 years pass and current Fire Lord Ozai continues to conquer and imprison anyone with elemental “bending” abilities in the Earth and Water Kingdoms, while siblings Katara and Sokka from a Southern Water Tribe find a mysterious boy trapped beneath the ice outside their village. Upon rescuing him, he reveals himself to be Aang, Avatar and last of the Air Nomads. Swearing to protect the Avatar, Katara and Sokka journey with him to the Northern Water Kingdom in his quest to master “Waterbending” and eventually fulfill his destiny of once again restoring peace to the world. But as they inch nearer to their goal, the group must evade Prince Zuko, the exiled son of Lord Ozai, Commander Zhao, the Fire Nation’s military leader, and the tyrannical onslaught of the evil Fire Lord himself.

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