Beat back by German troops to the French port city of Dunkirk, hundreds of thousands of Allied troops wait in desperation for an unlikely deliverance. Over the course of this harrowing week, we witness a French soldier trying to smuggle his way onto a fleeting British carrier, a dogfight between RAF and Luftwaffe pilots, and a civilian and his sons answering their country’s call to aid in the evacuation. Christopher Nolan’s most solemn and serious movie to date is a visually arresting, fluid, even balletic experience told with minimal dialogue and the aid of fine performances including Kenneth Branagh, Mark Rylance, Cillian Murphy, and Tom Hardy. The movie does reach a problem area however when the panoply of the filmmaking itself starts to take precedence over the actual events it is depicting.

Okay. Where to begin? "The Dark Knight" would be a tough act for anyone to follow and Christopher Nolan's final installment in his Batman trilogy isn't a disappointment in the traditional way we think of. Basically, there are only a few ways to follow such a quantifiable success such as TDK and they are make a lesser movie, make an original movie, or make a balls out, relentlessly assaultive, nonstop, over-the-top, epic length blockbuster that barely lets you breathe. You can probably guess which one the filmmakers opted for. Working with his brother Jonathan and David S. Goyer, the same team that developed the first two films, Nolan delivers a spectacular film with a less than inspired script. Now following eight years of relative harmony in Gotham, Batman is still playing the fall guy for Harvey Dent's crimes while living in seclusion at Wayne manor. Now, the League of Shadows sense the time is ripe to hatch chaos and destruction, sending the brutal Bane (Tom Hardy) and his gang of miscreants (seemingly lifted from the Occupy Gotham movement) to get the job done. Meanwhile Gordon is injured on the job, one of his intuitive young detectives (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) takes some initiative, a humanist (Marion Cotillard) becomes involved in a massive environmental deal with Wayne Enterprises, and Catwoman (Anne Hathaway) shows her claws. Again, Christian Bale plays a diminutive role and even during the overlong running time of the film, it seems like we hardly see him on screen. Michael Caine and Morgan Freeman return adding very little to the table this time around as they troubleshoot and offer cautionary advice. An unrecognizable and largely incomprehensible Hardy is appropriately menacing, but hardly fills the large shoes left by Heath Ledger. There are also major problems with the two major female additions to the cast. Both of their relationships to Wayne are poorly realized and nonsensical, and as for Hathaway, I still cannot understand how someone can be so good at parts and so off-puttingly horrendous at others, and her wild inconsistencies greatly affect the film. Also, a major plot twist towards the end of the picture qualifies as both lame and cheating. Another point is how well things wrap up in the finale, only for the filmmakers to cop out and offer a patted, sequel promising ending. Don't get me wrong, there are some really fine set pieces here, and I think I was the only one in the theater who wasn't whooping when THE DARK KNIGHT RISES finally flashed on the screen at the conclusion. During the proceedings though, as was the case with "Inception", I again felt like Alex from "A Clockwork Orange" with my eyes bolstered open as I was bombarded by endless amounts of sound and fury for nearly three hours.

            Inception is Nolan’s 7^th feature film, one of the few that he did not collaborate on with his brother Jonathon, and the first that, in addition to not being called great, can be referred to as a downright stinker. The problem lies not in the production value or action sequences, which are all top notch. The problem has to do with the plot, which takes place in what may or may not be a multilayered dream, that is unable to generate any tension. Because everything takes place in a dream, even the most climatic scenes fail to generate any tension, although the filmmakers due all they can to try to do so.

            The “plot” revolves around a con man named Cobb (Leonardo DiCaprio), who with his partner (Joseph Gordon-Levitt), enter peoples dreams, gain their trust, and get them to reveal their darkest secrets. When a mark (Ken Watanabe) decides to hire them to pull of the ultimate heist, they hire a dream architect (Ellen “Juno” Page), a muscle guy, and a dream inducer they are ready to go. That is until elements of Cobb’s reality begin to interfere with the dreams he enters. If that synopsis doesn’t sound ludicrous, trust me it gets worse.

            All directors fail. Spielberg had 1941, Coppola had Godfather III, and Shyamalan has had every movie since The Sixth Sense. Its not that Nolan has failed here, it’s the fact that he failed so poorly when the expectations were so high. That is not to say that no one will take enjoyment in the film. In fact the crowd roared when the credits began and many were abuzz in the lobby as they discussed plot points. As this movie will sure to please fanboys and action junkies, it will come across as a nightmare for anyone with any expectations at all.