Inception; Was It Just A Dream?

Interesting article I came across in this month's Empire magazine yesterday. If you are one of those, like me, who are still unsure who was dreaming which dream, which parts were reality, and just who exactly is the masked magician, then read on. Below should help you decide whether the reality in the film was merely all a manifestation of Cobb's mind...

YES!

• The spinning top does not fall over in the final scene.
• Cobb's children look exactly the same in the final scene as they do throughout the film, despite it being two years since he last saw them in 'reality'.
• In the Mombasa scene - the only 'real world' action sequence - the goons chasing Cobb are as faceless as the goon-projections in the dream worlds.
• Also in Mombasa, the moment where the alleyway and the walls start closing in on Cobb - perhaps the most obvious clue that this is not the 'real' world.
• The company out to get Cobb, 'Cobol Engineering', shares its first three letters with Cobb himself, a sure indicator that it's really just a creation of his own paranoid mind.
• Finally, when Mal points out to Cobb the ludicrousness of the idea that being chased around the world by a sinister company constitutes 'reality'.

NO!

• That's not to say the spinning top will never topple - it's merely a cheeky cut to keep us guessing. We actually see a tell-tale wobble just before the end credits role.
• Cobb's children are not exactly the same as he left them. Two pairs of children play them at different ages. Nolan just confuses us by having the older kids wear the same clothes as the younger.
• Unlike the dream-goons, the ones in Mombasa talk to Cobb. One of them growls; "You're not dreaming now, are ya?!".
• The walls closing-in in Mombasa is merely Nolan creating tension in the scene, not one of the characters manipulating the architecture. Indeed, the walls don't literally close-in, it's merely a narrowing alleyway.
• With regards to 'Cobol Engineering', you may as well say Cobb shares his name with another Nolan thief-character, Alex Haw's Cobb in 'Following', and assert that this movie is all his dream...
• Mal is a "shade", a product of Cobb's own guilty, self-destructive subconscious, and isn't to be trusted.

So, there you have it, the two arguments side-by-side. What do you think? Empire went with 'No', arguing that "there's no doubting that Nolan makes us question Cobb's reality at every turn, but we should, just as Cobb feels he needs to. It's all about making the journey more entertaining, rather than signposting its destination". Fair point, although I still remain unconvinced...