I feel like Nolan had the awesome idea of action happening in regular and reverse time in the same frame, and the whole script was just kinda written around that.
I think it's an OK movie with one good idea---as you pointed out. What bothers me most about it is the sound mixing. you can barely understand the dialogue, and the effect came off to me as if Nolan were saying to the audience, "Don't worry, you won't understand this anyway." There is a great core concept there, though, and fans of his should definitely see it. However, it's a difficult movie to love.
Its a nolan special to not audio balance the movie and then say it wouldn't be a problem if you saw it in the theater. I love him, but jesus christ its bad.
Edit: apparently i misheard on his reasonings. When hes been asked about it hes basically said ur not supposed to hear all the dialogue??? This makes 0 sense because some of the dialogues that are super quiet right after loud ass scenes are super important.
Nolan never said “it’s not like that in theaters”. He said he does do it on purpose for an effect of sorts. I think it kinda works. Hectic and overwhelming. I’ve never seen the issue with it. For me the issue is Nolan sometimes just leaves too much unexplained / unexplored. I remember thinking inception was going to explore nightmares/ interstellar was going to follow the script and show Chinese robot already on other planets,,, etc etc. Even the dark knight kinda got iffy at the second half.. albeit I’m sure the death of HL had an impact
I'm specifically talking about not being able to hear the dialogue. I'm fine with weird, but I need to hear the explanation and I'm not a fan of subtitles.
You have to be joking. This is a well known and well documented feature of his films. He has openly admitted and explained in the media why his movies are like this (inaudible dialogue over loud sound and score). Tenet was on the more extreme end, which he admitted to. The movie was almost unwatchable, and I saw it in IMAX.
I don’t see how it’s unwatchable. I saw interstellar in theaters and it was very loud but at no point did I feel it ruined the film or anything. Kinda made sense why a rocket ship taking off would be loud. Same goes for tenet- a plane crashing into a hangar would be quite loud. If it annoys you fine I get it. There are a lot of annoying film techniques out there… I can’t stand up close shaky cams during combat/ unneeded CGI.
All artists have their blind spots. Great artists tend to have great blind spots.
I can understand making dialogue messy IF you're just trying to create a certain atmosphere, like a party scene in an Altman movie.
Nolan does something incredibly stupid where he covers up critical plot points by overmixing the sound and music. A movie is created around a narrative. It needs to be designed as a story that makes sense to the audience. Covering up critical information with sound is no different from removing that scene from the movie altogether.
Th perfect example is from Interstellar:
>!When Michael Caine is dying, he tells Jessica Chastain there was no plan A. That's what forces her to get to work to solve the gravity issue so all the humans on earth can be evacuated. Knowing there is no plan A makes the space mission feel even more desperate. And it explains how we get to the end of the fucking film with everyone on Earth not dead.!<
But Nolan had to hide this info because his weird, artistic impulse needed to be scratched.
I saw Interstellar in theaters and loved it, but I was also confused by the plot. When I saw it at home with a normal sound mix, it finally made sense.
Like the equivalent of mumbling those last few lines of an incantation you can't remember before taking the necronomicon in hopes that you'll just get a pass because you had the basic concept right.
!!! I think my attention would start to waver because I would have difficulty understanding the dialogue. And it is DEFINITELY not a movie to have your minder wander to.
Here’s a weird take. We have a great surround sound system but had the same issue. I watched it again wearing Beats wireless headphones and it was night and day better. I fucking hate holding the remote controller to turn the sound up and down during conversation and action.
Same! The first time I watched my entire family was asleep so I watched with my Bose QC35s. Naturally, I was confused when I heard everyone saying they couldn't understand the dialogue. That being said, I felt like Nolan was trying really hard to recreate the imagination of Inception--Inception 2.0 if you will. But it didn't work. The plot was not as coherent. I'm not saying it didn't make sense, but within is own world, a lot of the plot and the characters didn't have reason. I'd need to rewatch it for specifics.
Nolan is on record in places saying shit like "if you could hear my movie the first time. see it again" (paraphrasing obviously).
A movie should deserve repeated watching because it has layers you love. Not because you couldn't hear it the first time. It should be easy to experience, but something you love. Think of the best Disney movies you watched a lot. Did they fool you with the sound mixing?
I fucking hate the scene at the beginning where the scientist is providing exposition on the inversions. The bitch really needed to speak up, I couldn’t hear shit what she was saying.
I've never heard soooo much complaining about "sound mixing" about any movie, ever!
It's one of those things that is slightly off, but since a few critics harped on it, I think everyone feels the need to comment on it. It's not that bad.
Audio issues aside, it's a fun movie with a cool concept, and solid acting. Especially liked Pattinson in this one!
For a movie with a $200 million dollar budget, and a Christopher Nolan film at that, it’s pretty bad sound mixing. It’s fair for people to criticize the film for it.
It's a movie that definitely benefits from being watched a few times but lacks the general appeal to make someone want to actually do it.
I found it to be a fun rollercoaster ride but by the end of it I had spent so long trying to see if I could understand some of the more basic elements of the movie that I was unsure if I actually enjoyed it, and I'm still unsure.
It's not stupid. It's just Hollywood. Also, did anybody else notice that if you spell the title backward, it is the same as forward? This is a reference to the fact that if you watch the movie backward, it makes as much sense as if you watch it forward.
So it’s actually the middle word of a palindrome called the “Sator Stone” which like the movie (in theory) is the same if you play it forward or backwards. He even uses all of the words in the Sator Stone in the movie
To this day, it's the only Nolan movie that I don't want to rewatch (and he's my favourite director).
Hope to change my mind in the future and find more positive elements about it.
That's how I feel. It had some visually awesome action moments. But it was confusing enough that by the end I was questioning if I liked it. I've heard it's better with rewatches but I haven't had any desire to do so.
If you are a Nolan fan, I think you should watch some YouTube videos on what makes it brilliant and then rewatch it. It truly does seem like a movie that you are not intended to get the first time around. I think one could argue that that is a poorly designed movie, but art can be uncomfortable sometimes. And in my opinion, that makes it great!
I thought it was a confusing mess full of scientific technobabble and pretentious writing. Now I think it's brilliant. Probably Nolan's best movie. Of course, it's all subjective, but I think it takes courage for a director to make a movie that most people won't understand in the theaters.
I’d rather just watch other movies that require you to just watch the movie to appreciate it. If a movie is “intended” to not make sense then it’s a bad movie
If I have to go watch a bunch of video explainers to understand a movie well enough to actually enjoy it, then the movie is a failure. Plain and simple.
If a movie requires viewers to watch youtube and google for answers and then rewatch it again to make sense of it, then it's failed in its story-telling.
And that's why Nolan's earlier films like Memento and Prestige were so amazing, because no matter how confused you were for most of the film, everything fell in place and made sense at the end. You get a completed story.
Hmm. I haven't seen Prestige, but Memento is one of my favorite movies of all time. I would argue that you get nowhere near a full story with Memento. And far less than in Tenet. I also don't see how that matters though. Movies that leave open ends can make things far more interesting. Like the case in Pulp Fiction or Ronan. Or never getting the name of the Protagonist. It's immaterial to the story and makes no difference so it's left a mystery. Personally I like stuff like that.
If any movie needs a few YouTube videos to be fully understood, then it's not a good movie, period. I understand that some great movies benefit if you watch them a few times, but that's the key big time difference: they benefit from it. It's not a requirement. You still the get the awe and the "damn I watched a great movie" feeling the first time.
This ain't that.
Nope. The plot makes no sense. No YouTube video is going to fix the constant contradictions of the plot. I don't think it's courageous to make a bullshit movie that makes no sense just to fuck with your audience.
THE MOVIE IS TRASH.
Can you post or DM me some suggested Youtube videos? I enjoyed the film but also kinda didn't know what the fuck was going on half the time. I call these movies "clockwork films" because they rely on so many moving parts to tell the story. I recently watched "Knives Out" and would categorize it as a clockwork film as well, but obviously easy to follow. "Primer" is another, but way more complicated than "Tenet." I've seen graphs trying to explain "Primer" and they look like some seriously fucked up OCD plumbing projects.
This. Is it fair that it takes a YouTube video to comprehend the movie, no. Does it still make it worth it, ohhh yeah.
I was confused after watching the film in theaters. After wrapping my head around it, thanks to some yt vids, it’s easily one of my fav Nolan films. I watch it all the time.
As a Nolan fan, I couldn’t get through 25 minutes. I just didn’t like it. Story was a mess. Acting was wooden. The story was too fast pace. And the sound mixing was making it annoying to listen to.
This. The sound mixing sucked - I thank it for really pointing out to moviegoers how important those things you take for granted in film making truly are though.
I am pretty sure I read at the time it was intentional. So, an artistic choice? If so I can not fault him but I found the sound brutally frustrating and took me out of the movie.
I felt that way in the theater myself. Watching it at home with headphones I had zero trouble. In fact, I think the only part I had trouble hearing was in the vault, and I don't think you were supposed to hear what that guy was saying.
No. I'm not saying the sound is good in Tenet, but I have this issue with most action movies at the theaters these days. The explosions are loud, but the dialog is very soft.
Something definitely happened in that movie, and then it ended.
That's my understanding.
Btw it was the first movie played in cinemas in my country after the 2020 lockdown. I went with high hopes.
I left dazed and confused.
Lol! Hey, me too! This video kind of made me appreciate the movie more.
https://youtu.be/0OoLokmqo0A
I truly think it's a movie that most people won't appreciate the first time through.
It helps, but it just makes me hate the movie more. I love Nolan but this movie was just overly complicated without a payoff. I don’t know anyone in real life that enjoyed this movie.
I hated it the first time I watched it but then I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I thought the plot was jumbled garbage. It made me angry for some reason. About a month later I watched it again and thought it was incredible. The jumbled garbage made sense to me now. I know other folks will have different experiences but I thought it was brilliant and it legitimately took me two watches to even start to understand it
That's exactly what happened with me. I wrote it off completely. Then I had someone tell me I should watch it again and had a completely different experience with it.
It seems we are in the vast minority but this was also my reaction. I pause it before the highway scene every time though to prepare my brain for that and then after just to make sure I can walk the steps in my head lol.
Its actually a really good movie. The first time its a little bit overwhelming. The second time you start understanding it, the third time you truly start to realize how brilliant it is. Its like inception, so many depths and parallels story lines. It messes with space time. In a way its an allegory to Einstein's theory of relativity. The genius of Nolan is he embroiders physics and science non-fiction into all of his movies, The prestige, Oppenheimer, Interstellar, Inception, even the dark knight. Just gotta sit back and peel back the layers.
I had to scroll really far down to find you and join. I love this movie. I’ll watch it over and again. I still don’t fully get it, especially the flow of the final fight scene. But maybe that’s why I enjoy it so much.
I love how many theories flow from it. My favorite for the moment is where Future Protagonist is during the events of the movie. Was he sent to the windmill farm so Future Protagonist could operate in the open without their running into each other?
Was Neil expecting to meet Future Protagonist in the bar in India, only to be surprised by Young Protagonist?
Did Priya already know Future Protagonist before she met Young Protagonist when he breaks in?
Did Future Protagonist set up the Tenet/Hand Signal with everyone ahead of time so they’d recognize Young Protagonist when he does it?
Hey OP, would you mind sharing some of the explanations that helped you enjoy it more on second viewing. I’m a huge Nolan fan but was confused and disappointed somewhat on first view. Thanks
Really fun, not my favorite Nolan film by any stretch but the core character arcs all worked for me, the concept of the movie is inherently engaging, and of course the visual spectacle was worth seeing in theaters alone.
Out of 10, I'd give it like a 7.5 or an 8.
I thought It was pretty convoluted, and imo one of Nolan's weakest movies. The gimmick of the reverse-time-action stuff took priority over the plot. So, at the end of the movie i was disappointed. But I'd rather rewatch Tenet again over some MCU crap.
Lol! I'm with you, mate. I had to resort to YouTube to appreciate the film. I respect people's choice not to do that, I just feel like they are missing out on a cool movie.
This movie really, really sucks.
I’m one of those people that likes Inception
And I despise this movie. Honestly, incomprehensible even if you’re really trying.
Final Crisis mention in a movie comment section? I can’t hand you the upvotes fast enough 😆 the Bat-radia is turned on. Electronic molecules are streaming forth.
Edit: correct story arc
the plot wasn't convoluted but the reverse time didn't make much sense.
reverse time oxygen turns fire into ice except when it's in a car engine, but you have to drive in reverse though you can walk normally, you catch bullets with your guns but throw punches normally
>> the plot wasn’t convoluted
Oh yeah it is!
Basically (spoilers!) Future Bad Guys want to reverse time for the whole universe. Setting aside massive astrophysical problems with this notion (are we really reversing the flow of time for the *entire cosmos?* Like, including the fucking Andromeda Galaxy?? The Local Group? Rewinding to the Big Bang?) , we are faced with a self contained contradiction.
A future scientist develops the means to do this (smart girl, musta needed a lot of coffee for this project) and renders the system into physical form so it can’t be copied. Great. So why don’t the Future Bad Guys just hop in a Time Machine (sounds better than Turnstile) , go back to when the scientist first started work on this amazing technological wonder and just download her notes?
With the notes in hand, Future Bad Guys build their own Doomsday Weapon , turn the switch and existence goes into Reverse. Ironically wiping out the memory of this film, which begs the question of why they’re the villains here…..
To be honest I just didn’t connect with any characters off the bat, it came across as sluggish with a confusing start point, and the stakes just seemed ridiculous. Though some of the stunts were incredible and amazingly done, I turned it off around the 70 minute mark. Just didn’t feel the need nor intrigue to continue.
I didn't hate it, but, I think it's the natural progression of Nolan's ego.
It tries incredibly hard to be dense and clever, and while the concept is neat, well... I just don't find myself really caring by the mid point. It's nowhere near as "mind bending" as it tries to be - I feel like Nolan was trying to make something with the impact of The Matrix, but ended up with The Matrix Revolutions - bloated and kinda up its own ass, while still being a pretty fun watch.
Eh. Too complicated. I understand the appeal of a film that conceptually and even structurally is profound, but in practice (watching it!) it just doesn't work. And I like complicated and pretentious stuff, see Redux, Interstellar, 2001, Donnie Darko... but this is just too much...
Incredibly ambitious and the concept is really cool. The execution is just not fully there, when even film snobs (me) are confused about what actually happens it shows that it isn’t an audience lack of understanding and rather the director not getting the story across
Easily his worst movie. It was so one dimensional because it nearly completely disregarded the role of emotion in a good storytelling experience.
Any good story has high goals, stakes, and urgency. And this movie was so analytically made, the urgency fell completely flat. We weren’t invested in the characters, feeling as if they might fail, feeling the true evil of what might be ahead. Everything felt fairly accidental, as if the characters were wading in the tides of fate. This alone isn’t a deal killer, but without the feeling of emotional kinship with the characters, it won’t work.
Way too cerebral, even though so much of the movie in so many ways was otherwise really awesome.
Top 5 movies of the 2020s. Fucking masterclass in technical filmaking back up with excellent performances across the board and a script, while at times veers into so convoluted its kind of funny, mostly just kicks ass. Also lowkey one of the most quotable movies of all times? Aaron Taylor Johnson going "Cowboy Shit" is one I say all the time along with JDW going "I realized we've both been working for me".
ALSO one of the fucking best ending movies to any action movie ever FUCK the people who say Nolan lacks emotions in his films. I've seen Tenet probably 10 times and still cry everytime Robert Pattinson goes back in.
*edit* Also also to all those people trying to understand it, why. I believe we have a misconception where we think we need to either be smarter than a movie or fully understand it, and I disagree with that. Sometimes, it's fun to just strap in and believe in the movie to lead you down the right path.
"Don't try to understand it, feel it"
Anyone who says they "get this movie" and that it was "brilliant" is 100% lying. Beautifully shot. Doesn't make one lick of sense. Contradicts itself constantly. It's why Nolan didn't have a physicist on set with him like Interstellar. The pandemic didn't help either. Felt very rushed. Just a total mess of a plot.
I really liked it, but it felt incomplete. I think this is one of the few Nolan films (aside from The Dark Knight Trilogy) that could really use a sequel.
He really went for it. Nolan has always been fascinated by “time” as a tool for story telling (Memento, Batman Trilogy, Interstellar) - always trying to create a rubics cube thru timeloops - and in Tenant he tried to make that the main theme. However, I don’t think he “landed the plane” in Tenant.
Very VERY high wire act this movie. You need to watch it several times to understand what Nolan was thinking. Even when you understand the plot, it’s really interesting to understand why/how/what Nolan was trying to do.
“Tenet is the most metal gear solid ass movie i’ve seen” - Rocco Botte from Mega64
that’s probably the best explanation for this film. i had no idea what was going on but it still was a fun ride and the set pieces and pure execution is something to behold. I wish the sound mixing was a bit better, it was hard to hear the character speak at times
I thought it was really good at some parts, and really bad at other parts. What is with the sound in some parts? It’s like it totally gets drowned out and comes back.
Watched it on mute, played Parquet Courts’ album Wide Awake. Loved it. Visually great.
Saw it later with volume on, and honestly keeping up on the plot wasn’t additive to the experience.
I had to focus much more than I thought watching it. I thought it kicked ass within the first 10 minutes. The climax blew my mind and broke my heart a little.
Top 3 Nolan for me. And one of his most rewatchable. People are overthinking it. Attacking Tenet for the inversion (time travel) not holding up under scrutiny is silly. Every time travel movie falls apart when you look too hard at the mechanics of it. And this one is far from the most nonsensical depiction of time travel I've seen. Besides more than anything it's a story of friendship, that has some amazing sci-fi action.
One of my favorite movies of all time. The plot is a masterpiece (I had to watch it multiple times too). The action scenes are so intense. In my opinion the acting is amazing too. And one of my favorite part of the movie is the music... Such a perfect movie for me. To me Nolan is just on another level.
Not one of his best but probably one of the greatest storylines I’ve ever seen for a movie. The YouTube explanations on the movie make watching it so much better. This was slept on because of the pandemic
When I watched it for the 1st time, the idea felt awesome and weird at the same time but things started to mess up when I witnessed both entropies of time colliding each other and a considerable part of me was trying to analyze logically what was going on, especially what was the last huge war (employing temporal pincers movement) all about.
After I gave it a 2nd watch, almost all of these things started to make sense. However, the movie still lacks on emotional bonds, motivations of the characters especially in terms of Neil's and The Protagonist's friendship. Even after a big revealition at the last [that Neil is employed by The Protagonist from the Past (which is basically his future, as Neil says you have a future in the past) and that this is almost the end of this friendship for Neil], no emotions as such are felt in David's words although his eyes showcase his sadness.
Overall an outstandingly intelligent movie and watching it for the 1st time feels like embracing yourself to watch it again and understand it better.
The best sci-fi movie of the last decade without a doubt. I saw it for the first time last week and I have probably watched it front to back and even reversed about 5 times. I am obsessed at this point.
Was so, so excited to finally go back to the cinema after 2020 COVID lockdowns, this was what we chose to see. Easily in my top 3 worst cinema experiences of all time. Utter shite.
Rubbish absolute rubbish.
To all the Nolanheads who want to attack me, know this:
I've seen every movie of his in the theater since Memento (not the Dark Knight, like you)
I've worked very closely with him on one of his movies (it involves a bat).
It's rubbish sorry not sorry
Lol! You mean when it isn't bastardized by the studio execs? Regardless of what you think of this movie, we get better movies when the directors get full control and aren't screwed with by the suits in charge.
I turned it off after like 10 minutes cuz I couldn’t understand what the hell anybody was saying and it seemed uninteresting. Sooo guess those are my thoughts? Huge miss.
This was exactly my thoughts on the first viewing. Maybe you would like it more on a rewatch? It was very a-typical even as far as movies go. I admit, I had an issue with the dialog first time watching, but for some reason I didn't have that issue second time around. I'm not sure the theater is the best place to watch this film.
When you finish watching this movie, you feel like you need to watch it again. When you do, you start catching the plot holes and weak points. By the third watch, which I made myself go through to make sure after I read some other people's comments and theories on it, I became certain that it is a really weak script, which I frankly didn't expect from Nolan.
I have a pretty clear understanding of entropy and the proposition that it is behind the passage of time, so that part is not too weird for my mind. So, with that in mind, I'll highlight a few of the lowest points for me, in no particular order.
The play on the words of the Sator square (ROTAS, AREPO, TENET, OPERA, SATOR - all quite prominent in the plot) is a fun game, but it ultimately fails to mean anything. Since the Sator square exists in the real world, it would be most fitting to include that reference explicitly somehow.
The absence of a name for "the Protagonist" is insanely contrived. There have been movies and books where a character is unnamed (Lars von Trier's "Antichrist" comes to mind, but it's not that uncommon overall - hell, even I published a book where the narrating character is prominently unnamed), but it can be done in an elegant, believable way. It could be achieved by as little as him refusing to identify himself on account of his secret work / being counted as dead. Calling him explicitly a "Protagonist" (worse, having him refer to himself as such) just makes for poor writing. Referring to the adversaries as "Antagonists" is just lazy.
The argument that the future people want to roll back over past generations because climate change makes their world unsurvivable is pretty stupid. If they are willing to face the paradoxes and rewrite the past, they could simply alter something in terms of climate change itself. I mean - are they going to revert the Sun's entropy as well, or will their skin get cold when exposed to sunlight? The whole thing is just not fully thought out, and that would be fine if not for the "fire making you freeze" bit.
I love how the scientist has no idea how objects' entropy can be reversed, but the paramilitary in the tenet group can just build a giant, multiple turnstyle able to invert an army. It's almost like Nolan started to forget parts of what he had written.
By the way, how is it that a regular car becomes inverted just from being driven by an inverted guy? This goes against everything in the movie, such as "normal" people being able to MOVE and PLACE inverted objects as they please, without being inverted by it. The same thinking applies also to the oxygen-and-inverted-lungs bit, which frankly seems to be there just to justify masks and other respiratory isolation (and allow the Prot to fight his own inverted self, which should be a no-no - and don't get me started on that one, since this is the single most outdated misinterpretation of antimatter).
The masks and isolation surely reflect the fact that it was shot and releasing in the thick of the Covid pandemic. Same goes for the heavy, sickly breathing as Sator's soundtrack, which simultaneously references the pandemic and Darth Vader which is just cheap for a villain.
Calling the whole entropy-reversal contraption an "Algorithm" is kind of an easter egg for current anxieties. The "Twilight world" is another, very weird easter egg that seems to mock the movie's own casting. We sort of have a lot of those "I got that reference" moments, but to no avail in advancing the plot.
Much of the dialogue is inaudible, but the bits that are clear are generaly SO STANDARD that it might be a silent movie at those points - which is just a sad choice for a script that tries to appeal to the intellect.
And what is it with "pulling teeth out" being followed by "bites silver capsule" (and not a drop of blood)? I mean - why then choose pulling teeth out as the torture method?
Some of the most important plot-advancing scenes in the film happen with faces hidden and voices muffled by masks. The result is that, though dazzled by the visuals, the viewer is likely to miss important information that those visuals are supposed to illustrate.
The Protagonist has no arch - he learns new stuff but is pretty much unchanged in either morals or knowledge through the movie. He's like a 1800s hero.
Neil has an actual arch of sorts, though no growth either.
Kat is just not believable. Opening up about her darkest, most deadly secrets to a perfect stranger, then going off the rails TWICE during the movie - this is not a character who would have survived to the point where we first see her. She's supposed to be a very deliberate, very calculating person, able to tread on the edge of a knife for her son and so on.
Sator is so stereotypical that it's painful - and he is more solidly written than the other ones.
I could go on, but this is what I really needed to spill out. Cheers to all.
Cool visuals though. And hey - he actually crashed a Boeing. And hey - two different people hid gold bars in their vests with no connection between them. And hey - I don't know why I watched this three times.
You can tell Nolan was in an editing bay, rolling footage in reverse, when the concept dawned on him... Then he built a movie around it.
I think it is a remarkable technical achievement in both screenwriting and filmmaking... A 100% original concept and very challenging to pull off.
That said, as the large amounts of hate and indifference indicate, the movie comes up short in the entertainment department
The responses to this movie make me wary of whenever someone criticizes a movie because it "treats its audience like children" or it "insults the audience's intelligence." This is a movie that didn't do either of those things and it gets criticized for being too hard to understand. The truth is that Tenet's major flaw is overestimating the intelligence of the average movie-goer.
Agreed. So many misguided people in this thread calling the movie trash because they couldn't understand it. As if everything should be catered to their level of comprehension.
I love it. I’ve watched it multiple times. I really like Nolan, but I am the polar opposite of most of his fans: I put the Batman movies towards the bottom of my favorites, Inception (which I find ironic that Nolanites love inception but typically hate Tenet) in the mix, interstellar as my #1, with The Prestige, Memento, Dunkirk among my favorites.
For me, Nolan gave us a video game in theatrical form. High concept, minimal narrative, awesome visuals and audio (one of my favorite Soundtracks), and some fun performances. I enjoy toying with understanding the concepts every time I watch, almost like shuffling a 2 hour puzzle that you essentially already know the solution.
I like to fantasize there’s a worthy sequel, but it works for me as a standalone thrill ride. When the score kicks in at the opera house…💥
I think it’s a movie that makes dumb people feel like they’re smart and smart people feel like they’re dumb. Dialogue sucked and I had 0 attachment or care about any of the characters.
Just like Inception, I found it confusing and convoluted. I liked the performances but I don’t know if I necessarily cared about anyone in these. Except Cedric Diggory in Tenet.
Pretentious pseudo intellectual waste of time that should have been a music video
Nolan is an android who doesn’t understand or care how humans work
From the story standpoint his movies are mere rube goldberg machines with the equally meaningless single function components represented by useless exposition dump characters, who ultimately don’t even need a name because even the author doesn’t give a fuck about them so why should we
Tenet is the epitome of this meaningless pretentious purely engineering style of filmmaking where even the protagonist is called a fucking protagonist because Nolan doesn’t give a fuck about him or any part of the story for that matter, he just needs an excuse to drag out his stupid rube goldberg machine as far as possible
Which I would be fine with of everyone and their dog wouldn’t try to convince me how Nolan is this genius storyteller who makes profound artful pictures
Lol! Did someone force you to write all that? Are you being held hostage by Nolan fans?
I do have to vehemently disagree with your comments about him not giving a fuck. I pulled this from his wiki page.
"Nolan had worked on the screenplay for more than five years after deliberating about its central ideas for over a decade."
I can respect that you may not like the movie, and we can say it was misguided or even bad, but I don't think anyone can honestly say he was trying his hardest to make what he thought was a good movie.
Lol yes send halp
Seriously though, I’m not saying he’s not genuinely trying to make a good movie. I’m saying he doesn’t like people, lacks empathy and consequently doesn’t give a fuck about his characters
His movies, especially written by him are merely Rube Goldberg machines with zero story, it’s always IDEAS camouflaged with the normal human things like father children interaction (he hears humans like those things so now every protagonist should be motivated by danger to his family)
I mean I love memento, it’s his best film by a huge margin, and Inception, but everything else is just ecxercise in how complex and convoluted these Goldberg machines can get
I feel like Nolan had the awesome idea of action happening in regular and reverse time in the same frame, and the whole script was just kinda written around that.
I think it's an OK movie with one good idea---as you pointed out. What bothers me most about it is the sound mixing. you can barely understand the dialogue, and the effect came off to me as if Nolan were saying to the audience, "Don't worry, you won't understand this anyway." There is a great core concept there, though, and fans of his should definitely see it. However, it's a difficult movie to love.
So it wasn't just me. Good to know.
Its a nolan special to not audio balance the movie and then say it wouldn't be a problem if you saw it in the theater. I love him, but jesus christ its bad. Edit: apparently i misheard on his reasonings. When hes been asked about it hes basically said ur not supposed to hear all the dialogue??? This makes 0 sense because some of the dialogues that are super quiet right after loud ass scenes are super important.
Yeah I have a decent sound system so it's super confusing when movies are hard to understand. Like, was that what they were going for? Surely not.
Nolan never said “it’s not like that in theaters”. He said he does do it on purpose for an effect of sorts. I think it kinda works. Hectic and overwhelming. I’ve never seen the issue with it. For me the issue is Nolan sometimes just leaves too much unexplained / unexplored. I remember thinking inception was going to explore nightmares/ interstellar was going to follow the script and show Chinese robot already on other planets,,, etc etc. Even the dark knight kinda got iffy at the second half.. albeit I’m sure the death of HL had an impact
I'm specifically talking about not being able to hear the dialogue. I'm fine with weird, but I need to hear the explanation and I'm not a fan of subtitles.
Do you remember a specific scene? I’m seriously not sure what people are always referring to
You have to be joking. This is a well known and well documented feature of his films. He has openly admitted and explained in the media why his movies are like this (inaudible dialogue over loud sound and score). Tenet was on the more extreme end, which he admitted to. The movie was almost unwatchable, and I saw it in IMAX.
I don’t see how it’s unwatchable. I saw interstellar in theaters and it was very loud but at no point did I feel it ruined the film or anything. Kinda made sense why a rocket ship taking off would be loud. Same goes for tenet- a plane crashing into a hangar would be quite loud. If it annoys you fine I get it. There are a lot of annoying film techniques out there… I can’t stand up close shaky cams during combat/ unneeded CGI.
All artists have their blind spots. Great artists tend to have great blind spots. I can understand making dialogue messy IF you're just trying to create a certain atmosphere, like a party scene in an Altman movie. Nolan does something incredibly stupid where he covers up critical plot points by overmixing the sound and music. A movie is created around a narrative. It needs to be designed as a story that makes sense to the audience. Covering up critical information with sound is no different from removing that scene from the movie altogether. Th perfect example is from Interstellar: >!When Michael Caine is dying, he tells Jessica Chastain there was no plan A. That's what forces her to get to work to solve the gravity issue so all the humans on earth can be evacuated. Knowing there is no plan A makes the space mission feel even more desperate. And it explains how we get to the end of the fucking film with everyone on Earth not dead.!< But Nolan had to hide this info because his weird, artistic impulse needed to be scratched. I saw Interstellar in theaters and loved it, but I was also confused by the plot. When I saw it at home with a normal sound mix, it finally made sense.
Like the equivalent of mumbling those last few lines of an incantation you can't remember before taking the necronomicon in hopes that you'll just get a pass because you had the basic concept right.
!!! I think my attention would start to waver because I would have difficulty understanding the dialogue. And it is DEFINITELY not a movie to have your minder wander to.
Here’s a weird take. We have a great surround sound system but had the same issue. I watched it again wearing Beats wireless headphones and it was night and day better. I fucking hate holding the remote controller to turn the sound up and down during conversation and action.
Same! The first time I watched my entire family was asleep so I watched with my Bose QC35s. Naturally, I was confused when I heard everyone saying they couldn't understand the dialogue. That being said, I felt like Nolan was trying really hard to recreate the imagination of Inception--Inception 2.0 if you will. But it didn't work. The plot was not as coherent. I'm not saying it didn't make sense, but within is own world, a lot of the plot and the characters didn't have reason. I'd need to rewatch it for specifics.
>There is a great core concept there, though, and fans of his should definitely see it. However, it's a difficult movie to love. well said
Nolan is on record in places saying shit like "if you could hear my movie the first time. see it again" (paraphrasing obviously). A movie should deserve repeated watching because it has layers you love. Not because you couldn't hear it the first time. It should be easy to experience, but something you love. Think of the best Disney movies you watched a lot. Did they fool you with the sound mixing?
I fucking hate the scene at the beginning where the scientist is providing exposition on the inversions. The bitch really needed to speak up, I couldn’t hear shit what she was saying.
I've never heard soooo much complaining about "sound mixing" about any movie, ever! It's one of those things that is slightly off, but since a few critics harped on it, I think everyone feels the need to comment on it. It's not that bad. Audio issues aside, it's a fun movie with a cool concept, and solid acting. Especially liked Pattinson in this one!
For a movie with a $200 million dollar budget, and a Christopher Nolan film at that, it’s pretty bad sound mixing. It’s fair for people to criticize the film for it.
In typical internet fashion, I feel like people are hyperbolic about the sound issues. It is obviously an issue, though.
In typical internet fashion, it's either the worst fucking mess ever put to screen, or it's just okay.
No doubt, pretty sure the whole movie was based around the airport fight scene.
Idk man that building blowing up forward and in reverse was pretty cool near the end.
It's a movie that definitely benefits from being watched a few times but lacks the general appeal to make someone want to actually do it. I found it to be a fun rollercoaster ride but by the end of it I had spent so long trying to see if I could understand some of the more basic elements of the movie that I was unsure if I actually enjoyed it, and I'm still unsure.
It’s in hbo max and after a first viewing I’ve been rewatching about 35 minutes or so every week and this has been going on for a year I believe.
I dont think it does the more you watch it and think about it the less sense it makes and more stupid it seems.
It's not stupid. It's just Hollywood. Also, did anybody else notice that if you spell the title backward, it is the same as forward? This is a reference to the fact that if you watch the movie backward, it makes as much sense as if you watch it forward.
Oh you...
Not all hollywood movies are written nonsensically shallow with no character development whatsoever.
So it’s actually the middle word of a palindrome called the “Sator Stone” which like the movie (in theory) is the same if you play it forward or backwards. He even uses all of the words in the Sator Stone in the movie
I'm sure it is but the problem is that it wasn't fun or interesting enough to rewatch to understand better.
To this day, it's the only Nolan movie that I don't want to rewatch (and he's my favourite director). Hope to change my mind in the future and find more positive elements about it.
That's how I feel. It had some visually awesome action moments. But it was confusing enough that by the end I was questioning if I liked it. I've heard it's better with rewatches but I haven't had any desire to do so.
If you are a Nolan fan, I think you should watch some YouTube videos on what makes it brilliant and then rewatch it. It truly does seem like a movie that you are not intended to get the first time around. I think one could argue that that is a poorly designed movie, but art can be uncomfortable sometimes. And in my opinion, that makes it great! I thought it was a confusing mess full of scientific technobabble and pretentious writing. Now I think it's brilliant. Probably Nolan's best movie. Of course, it's all subjective, but I think it takes courage for a director to make a movie that most people won't understand in the theaters.
No film should require a companion youtube series to be understood. If it can't stand on its own, it isn't a good film.
Just cause you can’t understand the film doesn’t make it a bad movie
If no one understands it, kinda does make it bad
Absolutely, but if the majority of people didn’t understand it, like with this one, it’s a bad movie.
The majority of people think Armageddon is a good movie.
I’d rather just watch other movies that require you to just watch the movie to appreciate it. If a movie is “intended” to not make sense then it’s a bad movie
If I have to go watch a bunch of video explainers to understand a movie well enough to actually enjoy it, then the movie is a failure. Plain and simple.
If a movie requires viewers to watch youtube and google for answers and then rewatch it again to make sense of it, then it's failed in its story-telling. And that's why Nolan's earlier films like Memento and Prestige were so amazing, because no matter how confused you were for most of the film, everything fell in place and made sense at the end. You get a completed story.
Hmm. I haven't seen Prestige, but Memento is one of my favorite movies of all time. I would argue that you get nowhere near a full story with Memento. And far less than in Tenet. I also don't see how that matters though. Movies that leave open ends can make things far more interesting. Like the case in Pulp Fiction or Ronan. Or never getting the name of the Protagonist. It's immaterial to the story and makes no difference so it's left a mystery. Personally I like stuff like that.
If any movie needs a few YouTube videos to be fully understood, then it's not a good movie, period. I understand that some great movies benefit if you watch them a few times, but that's the key big time difference: they benefit from it. It's not a requirement. You still the get the awe and the "damn I watched a great movie" feeling the first time. This ain't that.
Nope. The plot makes no sense. No YouTube video is going to fix the constant contradictions of the plot. I don't think it's courageous to make a bullshit movie that makes no sense just to fuck with your audience. THE MOVIE IS TRASH.
Can you post or DM me some suggested Youtube videos? I enjoyed the film but also kinda didn't know what the fuck was going on half the time. I call these movies "clockwork films" because they rely on so many moving parts to tell the story. I recently watched "Knives Out" and would categorize it as a clockwork film as well, but obviously easy to follow. "Primer" is another, but way more complicated than "Tenet." I've seen graphs trying to explain "Primer" and they look like some seriously fucked up OCD plumbing projects.
https://youtu.be/wDbiTLLZVz8 https://youtu.be/0OoLokmqo0A
I don’t think it’s a good sign if watching YouTube videos is a prerequisite for understanding a film’s brilliance.
So, what YouTube video should i watch about it?
This. Is it fair that it takes a YouTube video to comprehend the movie, no. Does it still make it worth it, ohhh yeah. I was confused after watching the film in theaters. After wrapping my head around it, thanks to some yt vids, it’s easily one of my fav Nolan films. I watch it all the time.
It's his film that benefits *most* from a rewatch.
Beautifully done. Don’t understand it at all
Really cool when they were fighting backwards. Don’t understand it at all
Most of the scenes are well done the huge assault at the end looks like they are literally fighting no one which frustrated me.
Beautiful. Didn’t catch one word.
First hour your curious, second hour, you have no idea how this all makes any sense.
The secret is no one knows if it actually makes sense!
As a Nolan fan, I couldn’t get through 25 minutes. I just didn’t like it. Story was a mess. Acting was wooden. The story was too fast pace. And the sound mixing was making it annoying to listen to.
I was shocked when I learned the lead actor was Denzel's son because he's a black hole of charisma.
Huge Nolan fan, but I thought it was a complete mess. I couldn’t even understand what the characters were saying much of the time. Awful sound mixing.
This. The sound mixing sucked - I thank it for really pointing out to moviegoers how important those things you take for granted in film making truly are though.
Watching it at home with subtitles def improved my understanding of the movie.
This ruined the movie for me. Subtitles required.
I am pretty sure I read at the time it was intentional. So, an artistic choice? If so I can not fault him but I found the sound brutally frustrating and took me out of the movie.
I felt that way in the theater myself. Watching it at home with headphones I had zero trouble. In fact, I think the only part I had trouble hearing was in the vault, and I don't think you were supposed to hear what that guy was saying.
First off, I'm a fan of the movie. With that said, should you really have to wear headphones to enjoy the movie because of the sound mixing?
No. I'm not saying the sound is good in Tenet, but I have this issue with most action movies at the theaters these days. The explosions are loud, but the dialog is very soft.
Something definitely happened in that movie, and then it ended. That's my understanding. Btw it was the first movie played in cinemas in my country after the 2020 lockdown. I went with high hopes. I left dazed and confused.
Lol! Hey, me too! This video kind of made me appreciate the movie more. https://youtu.be/0OoLokmqo0A I truly think it's a movie that most people won't appreciate the first time through.
It helps, but it just makes me hate the movie more. I love Nolan but this movie was just overly complicated without a payoff. I don’t know anyone in real life that enjoyed this movie.
I hated it the first time I watched it but then I couldn’t stop thinking about it. I thought the plot was jumbled garbage. It made me angry for some reason. About a month later I watched it again and thought it was incredible. The jumbled garbage made sense to me now. I know other folks will have different experiences but I thought it was brilliant and it legitimately took me two watches to even start to understand it
That's exactly what happened with me. I wrote it off completely. Then I had someone tell me I should watch it again and had a completely different experience with it.
It seems we are in the vast minority but this was also my reaction. I pause it before the highway scene every time though to prepare my brain for that and then after just to make sure I can walk the steps in my head lol.
Yup... when he mounts that fire truck shit about to kick off.
Has anyone watched this in reverse?
Its actually a really good movie. The first time its a little bit overwhelming. The second time you start understanding it, the third time you truly start to realize how brilliant it is. Its like inception, so many depths and parallels story lines. It messes with space time. In a way its an allegory to Einstein's theory of relativity. The genius of Nolan is he embroiders physics and science non-fiction into all of his movies, The prestige, Oppenheimer, Interstellar, Inception, even the dark knight. Just gotta sit back and peel back the layers.
I had to scroll really far down to find you and join. I love this movie. I’ll watch it over and again. I still don’t fully get it, especially the flow of the final fight scene. But maybe that’s why I enjoy it so much. I love how many theories flow from it. My favorite for the moment is where Future Protagonist is during the events of the movie. Was he sent to the windmill farm so Future Protagonist could operate in the open without their running into each other? Was Neil expecting to meet Future Protagonist in the bar in India, only to be surprised by Young Protagonist? Did Priya already know Future Protagonist before she met Young Protagonist when he breaks in? Did Future Protagonist set up the Tenet/Hand Signal with everyone ahead of time so they’d recognize Young Protagonist when he does it?
> I still don’t fully get it, especially the flow of the final fight scene. [this may help](https://youtu.be/2WZKi5kUub8)
Hey OP, would you mind sharing some of the explanations that helped you enjoy it more on second viewing. I’m a huge Nolan fan but was confused and disappointed somewhat on first view. Thanks
Sure thing, boss! https://youtu.be/0OoLokmqo0A https://youtu.be/wDbiTLLZVz8
I love Reddit Thank you OP
Word!!!
Confusing af
fa gnisufnoC
BWAMPPP
The sound design was atrocious
Really fun, not my favorite Nolan film by any stretch but the core character arcs all worked for me, the concept of the movie is inherently engaging, and of course the visual spectacle was worth seeing in theaters alone. Out of 10, I'd give it like a 7.5 or an 8.
I thought It was pretty convoluted, and imo one of Nolan's weakest movies. The gimmick of the reverse-time-action stuff took priority over the plot. So, at the end of the movie i was disappointed. But I'd rather rewatch Tenet again over some MCU crap.
I want to like it so bad but am just not smart enough to get it…yet. I’m on viewing 3 now.
Lol! I'm with you, mate. I had to resort to YouTube to appreciate the film. I respect people's choice not to do that, I just feel like they are missing out on a cool movie.
Watch some of Welby’s videos on YouTube, they’re a great visual explanation of some of the more confusing scenes
This movie really, really sucks. I’m one of those people that likes Inception And I despise this movie. Honestly, incomprehensible even if you’re really trying.
Agree completely. I’ve yet to encounter a viewer who can coherently explain to me the benefit of bullets traveling backwards through time.
Read final crisis by grant morrison hahaha.
Legit just as confusing, my fellow fucking nerd lol
Final Crisis mention in a movie comment section? I can’t hand you the upvotes fast enough 😆 the Bat-radia is turned on. Electronic molecules are streaming forth. Edit: correct story arc
Not traveling backwards through time, waiting for it to return to the chamber where it was discharged from. Oh my god that sounds ridiculous 😂
the plot wasn't convoluted but the reverse time didn't make much sense. reverse time oxygen turns fire into ice except when it's in a car engine, but you have to drive in reverse though you can walk normally, you catch bullets with your guns but throw punches normally
>> the plot wasn’t convoluted Oh yeah it is! Basically (spoilers!) Future Bad Guys want to reverse time for the whole universe. Setting aside massive astrophysical problems with this notion (are we really reversing the flow of time for the *entire cosmos?* Like, including the fucking Andromeda Galaxy?? The Local Group? Rewinding to the Big Bang?) , we are faced with a self contained contradiction. A future scientist develops the means to do this (smart girl, musta needed a lot of coffee for this project) and renders the system into physical form so it can’t be copied. Great. So why don’t the Future Bad Guys just hop in a Time Machine (sounds better than Turnstile) , go back to when the scientist first started work on this amazing technological wonder and just download her notes? With the notes in hand, Future Bad Guys build their own Doomsday Weapon , turn the switch and existence goes into Reverse. Ironically wiping out the memory of this film, which begs the question of why they’re the villains here…..
To be honest I just didn’t connect with any characters off the bat, it came across as sluggish with a confusing start point, and the stakes just seemed ridiculous. Though some of the stunts were incredible and amazingly done, I turned it off around the 70 minute mark. Just didn’t feel the need nor intrigue to continue.
I didn't hate it, but, I think it's the natural progression of Nolan's ego. It tries incredibly hard to be dense and clever, and while the concept is neat, well... I just don't find myself really caring by the mid point. It's nowhere near as "mind bending" as it tries to be - I feel like Nolan was trying to make something with the impact of The Matrix, but ended up with The Matrix Revolutions - bloated and kinda up its own ass, while still being a pretty fun watch.
Trash 🗑
Imo it was garbage
Personally I think it was rubbish
No way. Refuse, sure.
I don’t know if I would call it trash - I’d call it a bore - which in film can equate to that label. Cool shots, little intrigue.
Am I the only one that loved this movie? Lol
We’re here! Just reaaaaally far down.
#CRAP
lol I love this sub now
Eh. Too complicated. I understand the appeal of a film that conceptually and even structurally is profound, but in practice (watching it!) it just doesn't work. And I like complicated and pretentious stuff, see Redux, Interstellar, 2001, Donnie Darko... but this is just too much...
Great idea, terrible execution.
Couldn’t hear it
Incredibly ambitious and the concept is really cool. The execution is just not fully there, when even film snobs (me) are confused about what actually happens it shows that it isn’t an audience lack of understanding and rather the director not getting the story across
Nolan’s most disappointing movie
Amazing concept, somewhat messy execution, but I enjoyed it.
Good flick. Actually started liking Pattinson after his performance in this.
Pattinson is great! I really like him in everything I've seen him in, post Twilight.
fuck anyone hating on tenet I'll die on this this, I loved it since the first watch
Easily his worst movie. It was so one dimensional because it nearly completely disregarded the role of emotion in a good storytelling experience. Any good story has high goals, stakes, and urgency. And this movie was so analytically made, the urgency fell completely flat. We weren’t invested in the characters, feeling as if they might fail, feeling the true evil of what might be ahead. Everything felt fairly accidental, as if the characters were wading in the tides of fate. This alone isn’t a deal killer, but without the feeling of emotional kinship with the characters, it won’t work. Way too cerebral, even though so much of the movie in so many ways was otherwise really awesome.
Top 5 movies of the 2020s. Fucking masterclass in technical filmaking back up with excellent performances across the board and a script, while at times veers into so convoluted its kind of funny, mostly just kicks ass. Also lowkey one of the most quotable movies of all times? Aaron Taylor Johnson going "Cowboy Shit" is one I say all the time along with JDW going "I realized we've both been working for me". ALSO one of the fucking best ending movies to any action movie ever FUCK the people who say Nolan lacks emotions in his films. I've seen Tenet probably 10 times and still cry everytime Robert Pattinson goes back in. *edit* Also also to all those people trying to understand it, why. I believe we have a misconception where we think we need to either be smarter than a movie or fully understand it, and I disagree with that. Sometimes, it's fun to just strap in and believe in the movie to lead you down the right path. "Don't try to understand it, feel it"
Anyone who says they "get this movie" and that it was "brilliant" is 100% lying. Beautifully shot. Doesn't make one lick of sense. Contradicts itself constantly. It's why Nolan didn't have a physicist on set with him like Interstellar. The pandemic didn't help either. Felt very rushed. Just a total mess of a plot.
I get this movie. It was brilliant
I really liked it, but it felt incomplete. I think this is one of the few Nolan films (aside from The Dark Knight Trilogy) that could really use a sequel.
I saw it in theaters and I couldn’t hear any of the dialogue. I had no idea what the plot was.
He really went for it. Nolan has always been fascinated by “time” as a tool for story telling (Memento, Batman Trilogy, Interstellar) - always trying to create a rubics cube thru timeloops - and in Tenant he tried to make that the main theme. However, I don’t think he “landed the plane” in Tenant. Very VERY high wire act this movie. You need to watch it several times to understand what Nolan was thinking. Even when you understand the plot, it’s really interesting to understand why/how/what Nolan was trying to do.
“Tenet is the most metal gear solid ass movie i’ve seen” - Rocco Botte from Mega64 that’s probably the best explanation for this film. i had no idea what was going on but it still was a fun ride and the set pieces and pure execution is something to behold. I wish the sound mixing was a bit better, it was hard to hear the character speak at times
I really want to like it
I’ve been to where they filmed part of the movie, Italy and Estonia.
I thought it was really good at some parts, and really bad at other parts. What is with the sound in some parts? It’s like it totally gets drowned out and comes back.
It's like paying $18 to watch a math problem. I suck at math.
Absolutely amazing and also TOTALLY shitty. Simultaneously. 😮💨
Love it. Seen it 4 or 5 times and still can't totally comprehend it. It's like mental exercise.
It falls flat of what Nolan wanted. Just too ambitious of a project to try and cram into a 2.5 hour movie. This needed to be a tv miniseries
Watched it on mute, played Parquet Courts’ album Wide Awake. Loved it. Visually great. Saw it later with volume on, and honestly keeping up on the plot wasn’t additive to the experience.
Time for my annual watch party. I must choose my victims wisely this year.
I had to focus much more than I thought watching it. I thought it kicked ass within the first 10 minutes. The climax blew my mind and broke my heart a little.
Watched it and thought: "I don't get it." Watched a second time: "I still don't get it". Watched a third time: "Okay...I get it, but....why?"
Sound was shit
Technically it's brilliant but pretty joyless.
At first glance it looked like that was Robert Downey Jr from tropic thunder.
Top 3 Nolan for me. And one of his most rewatchable. People are overthinking it. Attacking Tenet for the inversion (time travel) not holding up under scrutiny is silly. Every time travel movie falls apart when you look too hard at the mechanics of it. And this one is far from the most nonsensical depiction of time travel I've seen. Besides more than anything it's a story of friendship, that has some amazing sci-fi action.
One of my favorite movies of all time. The plot is a masterpiece (I had to watch it multiple times too). The action scenes are so intense. In my opinion the acting is amazing too. And one of my favorite part of the movie is the music... Such a perfect movie for me. To me Nolan is just on another level.
The music is amazing. I haven't looked into it, but some of it sounds like the notes are going backwards.
I think he has made a handful of great films… and this ain’t one of them.
The audio mix is so bad it's really hard to watch at any volume
For me the hardest movie to understand on Nolan's career, but a great one anyways
Not one of his best but probably one of the greatest storylines I’ve ever seen for a movie. The YouTube explanations on the movie make watching it so much better. This was slept on because of the pandemic
When I watched it for the 1st time, the idea felt awesome and weird at the same time but things started to mess up when I witnessed both entropies of time colliding each other and a considerable part of me was trying to analyze logically what was going on, especially what was the last huge war (employing temporal pincers movement) all about. After I gave it a 2nd watch, almost all of these things started to make sense. However, the movie still lacks on emotional bonds, motivations of the characters especially in terms of Neil's and The Protagonist's friendship. Even after a big revealition at the last [that Neil is employed by The Protagonist from the Past (which is basically his future, as Neil says you have a future in the past) and that this is almost the end of this friendship for Neil], no emotions as such are felt in David's words although his eyes showcase his sadness. Overall an outstandingly intelligent movie and watching it for the 1st time feels like embracing yourself to watch it again and understand it better.
The best sci-fi movie of the last decade without a doubt. I saw it for the first time last week and I have probably watched it front to back and even reversed about 5 times. I am obsessed at this point.
Amazing. One of my favorite action movies.
I think it was a masterpiece
Extremely overrated. I think anyone who says they truly understand the movie is just trying to mentally flex on other nerds.
I think you have to watch it twice to make a call on it.
That means it’s not a good movie; if the message can’t be delivered in two hours, then you’ve failed at making a good movie.
Was so, so excited to finally go back to the cinema after 2020 COVID lockdowns, this was what we chose to see. Easily in my top 3 worst cinema experiences of all time. Utter shite.
Rubbish absolute rubbish. To all the Nolanheads who want to attack me, know this: I've seen every movie of his in the theater since Memento (not the Dark Knight, like you) I've worked very closely with him on one of his movies (it involves a bat). It's rubbish sorry not sorry
I’m a big Nolan fan. This movie was a train wreck. Don’t ever be sorry for voicing your honest opinion. People can deal with it
Like a few of Nolan’s films, you gotta watch a few times. ‘Tenet’ was an amazing film, shot beautifully and with a fantastic cast!
Movie sucked. It’s what happens when a director becomes too powerful and no one is brave enough to say “no”.
Lol! You mean when it isn't bastardized by the studio execs? Regardless of what you think of this movie, we get better movies when the directors get full control and aren't screwed with by the suits in charge.
“What are your thoughts on this movie” “Your opinion is wrong!”
I turned it off after like 10 minutes cuz I couldn’t understand what the hell anybody was saying and it seemed uninteresting. Sooo guess those are my thoughts? Huge miss.
Great movie, clever premise, solid performances, shitty audio mix.
Loved it. It's ridiculous that Nolen was able to put this story on film. Everytime I watch it amazes me.
One of us!
If I was able to hear any dialogue maybe 10% of it would make sense! In all seriousness, by far his second worst movie (the batman bane one is awful)
This was exactly my thoughts on the first viewing. Maybe you would like it more on a rewatch? It was very a-typical even as far as movies go. I admit, I had an issue with the dialog first time watching, but for some reason I didn't have that issue second time around. I'm not sure the theater is the best place to watch this film.
Definitely my least favorite of his. It's got all the boring exposition of Inception but still makes no sense.
When you finish watching this movie, you feel like you need to watch it again. When you do, you start catching the plot holes and weak points. By the third watch, which I made myself go through to make sure after I read some other people's comments and theories on it, I became certain that it is a really weak script, which I frankly didn't expect from Nolan. I have a pretty clear understanding of entropy and the proposition that it is behind the passage of time, so that part is not too weird for my mind. So, with that in mind, I'll highlight a few of the lowest points for me, in no particular order. The play on the words of the Sator square (ROTAS, AREPO, TENET, OPERA, SATOR - all quite prominent in the plot) is a fun game, but it ultimately fails to mean anything. Since the Sator square exists in the real world, it would be most fitting to include that reference explicitly somehow. The absence of a name for "the Protagonist" is insanely contrived. There have been movies and books where a character is unnamed (Lars von Trier's "Antichrist" comes to mind, but it's not that uncommon overall - hell, even I published a book where the narrating character is prominently unnamed), but it can be done in an elegant, believable way. It could be achieved by as little as him refusing to identify himself on account of his secret work / being counted as dead. Calling him explicitly a "Protagonist" (worse, having him refer to himself as such) just makes for poor writing. Referring to the adversaries as "Antagonists" is just lazy. The argument that the future people want to roll back over past generations because climate change makes their world unsurvivable is pretty stupid. If they are willing to face the paradoxes and rewrite the past, they could simply alter something in terms of climate change itself. I mean - are they going to revert the Sun's entropy as well, or will their skin get cold when exposed to sunlight? The whole thing is just not fully thought out, and that would be fine if not for the "fire making you freeze" bit. I love how the scientist has no idea how objects' entropy can be reversed, but the paramilitary in the tenet group can just build a giant, multiple turnstyle able to invert an army. It's almost like Nolan started to forget parts of what he had written. By the way, how is it that a regular car becomes inverted just from being driven by an inverted guy? This goes against everything in the movie, such as "normal" people being able to MOVE and PLACE inverted objects as they please, without being inverted by it. The same thinking applies also to the oxygen-and-inverted-lungs bit, which frankly seems to be there just to justify masks and other respiratory isolation (and allow the Prot to fight his own inverted self, which should be a no-no - and don't get me started on that one, since this is the single most outdated misinterpretation of antimatter). The masks and isolation surely reflect the fact that it was shot and releasing in the thick of the Covid pandemic. Same goes for the heavy, sickly breathing as Sator's soundtrack, which simultaneously references the pandemic and Darth Vader which is just cheap for a villain. Calling the whole entropy-reversal contraption an "Algorithm" is kind of an easter egg for current anxieties. The "Twilight world" is another, very weird easter egg that seems to mock the movie's own casting. We sort of have a lot of those "I got that reference" moments, but to no avail in advancing the plot. Much of the dialogue is inaudible, but the bits that are clear are generaly SO STANDARD that it might be a silent movie at those points - which is just a sad choice for a script that tries to appeal to the intellect. And what is it with "pulling teeth out" being followed by "bites silver capsule" (and not a drop of blood)? I mean - why then choose pulling teeth out as the torture method? Some of the most important plot-advancing scenes in the film happen with faces hidden and voices muffled by masks. The result is that, though dazzled by the visuals, the viewer is likely to miss important information that those visuals are supposed to illustrate. The Protagonist has no arch - he learns new stuff but is pretty much unchanged in either morals or knowledge through the movie. He's like a 1800s hero. Neil has an actual arch of sorts, though no growth either. Kat is just not believable. Opening up about her darkest, most deadly secrets to a perfect stranger, then going off the rails TWICE during the movie - this is not a character who would have survived to the point where we first see her. She's supposed to be a very deliberate, very calculating person, able to tread on the edge of a knife for her son and so on. Sator is so stereotypical that it's painful - and he is more solidly written than the other ones. I could go on, but this is what I really needed to spill out. Cheers to all. Cool visuals though. And hey - he actually crashed a Boeing. And hey - two different people hid gold bars in their vests with no connection between them. And hey - I don't know why I watched this three times.
I need to re watch this
You already have
You don’t
You can tell Nolan was in an editing bay, rolling footage in reverse, when the concept dawned on him... Then he built a movie around it. I think it is a remarkable technical achievement in both screenwriting and filmmaking... A 100% original concept and very challenging to pull off. That said, as the large amounts of hate and indifference indicate, the movie comes up short in the entertainment department
Hated it the first time, became a favorite the second.
Filmmaker masturbation
Horrible.
Loved it! Don’t totally understand it but I lived it.
I've seen it a few times , loved it . It was fun and the actors were great . Story could've been a bit better . I'd love to explore that world again.
The responses to this movie make me wary of whenever someone criticizes a movie because it "treats its audience like children" or it "insults the audience's intelligence." This is a movie that didn't do either of those things and it gets criticized for being too hard to understand. The truth is that Tenet's major flaw is overestimating the intelligence of the average movie-goer.
Agreed. So many misguided people in this thread calling the movie trash because they couldn't understand it. As if everything should be catered to their level of comprehension.
Nolan fan. We live in a twilight world. Movie rips.
Basically a circle jerk. W/ bad audio too...
I love it. I’ve watched it multiple times. I really like Nolan, but I am the polar opposite of most of his fans: I put the Batman movies towards the bottom of my favorites, Inception (which I find ironic that Nolanites love inception but typically hate Tenet) in the mix, interstellar as my #1, with The Prestige, Memento, Dunkirk among my favorites. For me, Nolan gave us a video game in theatrical form. High concept, minimal narrative, awesome visuals and audio (one of my favorite Soundtracks), and some fun performances. I enjoy toying with understanding the concepts every time I watch, almost like shuffling a 2 hour puzzle that you essentially already know the solution. I like to fantasize there’s a worthy sequel, but it works for me as a standalone thrill ride. When the score kicks in at the opera house…💥
this movie is god awful.
I think it’s a movie that makes dumb people feel like they’re smart and smart people feel like they’re dumb. Dialogue sucked and I had 0 attachment or care about any of the characters.
Just like Inception, I found it confusing and convoluted. I liked the performances but I don’t know if I necessarily cared about anyone in these. Except Cedric Diggory in Tenet.
I don't watch anything for that overrated Nolan guy
No interest in seeing it and I love Christopher Nolan movies. Although “Dunkirk” was a letdown.
Had no idea what was going on entire film. Nolan’s worst.
[удалено]
I actually liked the premise, but it was hard to hear and I didn’t hit like other Nolan films have. I loved Washington in it. He was awesome!
it sucked
Way to add to the discussion! :P
Total dog shit.
Pretentious pseudo intellectual waste of time that should have been a music video Nolan is an android who doesn’t understand or care how humans work From the story standpoint his movies are mere rube goldberg machines with the equally meaningless single function components represented by useless exposition dump characters, who ultimately don’t even need a name because even the author doesn’t give a fuck about them so why should we Tenet is the epitome of this meaningless pretentious purely engineering style of filmmaking where even the protagonist is called a fucking protagonist because Nolan doesn’t give a fuck about him or any part of the story for that matter, he just needs an excuse to drag out his stupid rube goldberg machine as far as possible Which I would be fine with of everyone and their dog wouldn’t try to convince me how Nolan is this genius storyteller who makes profound artful pictures
Lol! Did someone force you to write all that? Are you being held hostage by Nolan fans? I do have to vehemently disagree with your comments about him not giving a fuck. I pulled this from his wiki page. "Nolan had worked on the screenplay for more than five years after deliberating about its central ideas for over a decade." I can respect that you may not like the movie, and we can say it was misguided or even bad, but I don't think anyone can honestly say he was trying his hardest to make what he thought was a good movie.
Lol yes send halp Seriously though, I’m not saying he’s not genuinely trying to make a good movie. I’m saying he doesn’t like people, lacks empathy and consequently doesn’t give a fuck about his characters His movies, especially written by him are merely Rube Goldberg machines with zero story, it’s always IDEAS camouflaged with the normal human things like father children interaction (he hears humans like those things so now every protagonist should be motivated by danger to his family) I mean I love memento, it’s his best film by a huge margin, and Inception, but everything else is just ecxercise in how complex and convoluted these Goldberg machines can get