Inception Premiere in Los Angeles

Inception premiered in Los Angeles at Grauman's Chinese Theater last night. The film stars Leonardo DiCaprio, Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page, Ken Watanabe, and Joseph Gordon-Levitt. After the screening, the after-party was treated to a special one-time performance by Hans Zimmer, who composed the soundtrack of the movie, and Johnny Marr, guitarist of The Smiths and Modest Mouse.

All photos courtesy of Getty.

Inception director Christopher Nolan combines never-before-seen special effects with the mind-bending narrative devices of his film Memento and the dark subject matter of his Batman movie, Dark Knight.

Xan Brooks of The Guardian describes the experience as "a kind of metaphysical heist movie: a Thomas Crown Affair of the senses. It takes its various dream states and arranges them like Chinese boxes, one within the other and each running to a different clock, like Narnia."

Sound confusing? It is. While Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter praises the film lavishly, calling it the "most original movie idea in ages," he also wryly notes that "It will perhaps take multiple viewings of these multiple dream states to extract all the logic and regulations. (At least that's what the filmmakers hope.)"

Bottom line: after seeing the movie, Eric Ditzian of MTV News advises that "It's best to know as little as possible before buying your 'Inception' ticket when the film opens Friday."