Daring, ambitious, and complex beyond measure, Inception, the newest blockbuster from writer-director Christopher Nolan (The Dark Knight, Memento) explores the nature of dreams. Dom Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio) is trained in the art of “extraction”, the ability to break into one’s subconscious and extract some of the mind’s deepest secrets using the person’s dreams. The first part of the film explains this elaborate process and lays the foundation for the remainder of the film.

But Cobb’s next task doesn’t involve extracting ideas—it involves planting an idea into the mind, or “inception”. The job, commissioned by the CEO of a powerful company, Saito (Ken Watanabe), becomes personal for Cobb. If he succeeds, he can finally return home instead being on the run. But the risks are infinite—“inception” involves going deep into the dreamer’s subconscious. The deeper you go, the more uncertain and uncontrollable things become, and the harder it is to re-emerge from the dream.

Cobb assembles his team, which includes Arthur (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), his trusted point man, Ariadne (Ellen Page), his “architect”, who constructs the dream world, and Eames (Tom Hardy), his “forger”, who impersonates other people in the dream world. The rest of the film takes the viewer on a wild ride. The team must devise convoluted tricks to conquer the risks of penetrating deep into the dream world, and Cobb must fend off his own inner demons, including his mysterious and delusional dreams of his wife Mal (Marion Cotillard).

It is almost impossible to fathom how Nolan manages to weave all of this together into one film. He sends the viewer into a perplexing fantasy that surprisingly feels real, just like how the dream feels for the dreamer. He sets up multiple conflicts and multiple universes swirling around simultaneously, leaving the viewer both haunted and mesmerized. Like Nolan’s previous films, Inception blends together highly coordinated action sequences with profound underlying themes. The spectacular visual effects enhance the cinematic experience and keep the viewer glued to the screen. Beneath this outer layer, the film explores a number of psychological theories that, along with the rapidly changing plot and setting, completely immerse the viewer.

The film certainly has its flaws, most notably its paper-thin characters and fairly cliché emotional roots (Dom’s desire to reunite with his wife & children). But given the intricacies of Inception and the intriguing aura that its diverse cast brings to the characters, these flaws are easily forgotten, buried under the many layers of this masterful film. Nolan has once again crafted a film that combines the individualistic vision of his earlier films and the awe-inspiring technological feats of his more recent films. He has designed his own dream world and let the viewer in on all of its secrets, in the form of heart-pounding suspense and mind-boggling genius. It’s a lot for the mind to process in one sitting, but it’s a journey definitely worth taking.