Tenet

[Stewball]

I've been a big fan of Christopher Nolan, especially with his superb efforts like The Dark Knight, Inception and Interstellar. And I've been looking forward to this for almost a year. But my first theater experience since Covid was something of a disappointment due to both conceptual and technical problems that interfered with presenting a coherent story. From the opening sequence in the concert hall (which they never really explain), to problems with understanding the dialogue due to voices being muffled/distorted by gas masks and competing ambient noise, not to mention accents and diction, is a recurring problem throughout the film. Things might be better with headphones, but I suspect not much.

The other major problem is how it deals with the idea of time travel or reversal of time. They talk about the grandfather paradox, where someone goes back in time and kills their grandfather, but they never declare how that might be resolved. I think, if the movie accomplishes anything, it shows that such time travel would result in rationally unresolvable chaos-which I guess you could say, the movie portrays pretty well. Yes, observational travel back in time may well be possible, where all you can do is watch, like replaying a video. But interactive time travel in our 4-D universe is apparently not possible. Taking the grandfather paradox to it's extreme, someone from 10 billion years in the future could figure how to go back in time and cancel the Big Bang....(sigh).

It's a stellar cast, with Elizabeth Debicki being a dominant presence in every scene she's in; and Denzel Washington's son, John David, is excellent, especially given that he has the best diction of the lot-something I probably wouldn't normally have noticed.

As for plot questions: I never understood the significance of Plutonium 241, or what exactly the role of the woman from India was, except that she was the antagonist to Washington's protagonist.

On the positive side, the visuals were as excellent as the audio was garbled. Some of the action sequences worked despite the time-vector confusion, and the scenes with the hydrofoil sailboats was a visual highlight of the film. I regret that I can only give this a 6/10.
Summary: The unintended consequence may be that it disproves time travel.

[movieboy]

Finally watched it yesterday. Rated T7. Movie is just a vehicle for Nolan to show how smart he is.

This is the first non-Batman Nolan movie, I don't feel like watching a second time to figure out all the stuff I missed - I just don't care what I missed. I don't want to find more clues about how smart Nolan is.

[Stewball]

Finally watched it yesterday. Rated T7. Movie is just a vehicle for Nolan to show how smart he is.

This is the first non-Batman Nolan movie, I don't feel like watching a second time to figure out all the stuff I missed - I just don't care what I missed. I don't want to find more clues about how smart Nolan is.

"First non-Batman Nolan move"??? So what are, Memento, The Prestige, Inception, Interstellar or Dunkirk? And Nolan is smart, but he outsmarted himself on this one by painting himself into a corner. He mentions the grandfather paradox, but then had to completely ignore it--leaving the plot in shambles.

[mattorama12]

"First non-Batman Nolan move"??? So what are, Memento, The Prestige, Inception, Interstellar or Dunkirk?

Here, try this: This is the first non-Batman Nolan movie [where] I don't feel like watching a second time to figure out all the stuff I missed - I just don't care what I missed.

[movieboy]

This is the first non-Batman Nolan movie, I don't feel like watching a second time to figure out all the stuff I missed - I just don't care what I missed.

"First non-Batman Nolan move"??? So what are, Memento, The Prestige, Inception, Interstellar or Dunkirk?

I probably didn't write it clearly. What I meant was most other non-Batman Nolan movies like Memento, Prestige, Inception, I rewatched so many times to figure out all the stuff I missed. Tenet was the first non-Batman Nolan movie which I didn't at all feel like watching a 2nd time. I just didn't care what I missed.

[coffee]

I probably didn't write it clearly.

Please, do not worry about that. What you meant was very clear and understandable.

I also agree with you. I, too, probably will never watch this film again.

I'm sure Nolan has a higher IQ than the average person. But I wasn't really awestruck by his enormous brain. And this film serves only to one purpose which is to show the world how giant his brain was. As a general rule having a big brain is nothing. What you do with it, that's what matters.

Tenet was completely devoid of feeling (If you Google "devoid of feeling movie", Tenet comes first.) and the premise was not really amazing. Just a good idea turned into a mediocre film. Nolan should've started with a film like this and Memento should've been his 10th or 11th film. He is actually going backwards achievement-wise, funny.

He could've given the money to OXFAM and got better results.

[Bob Wire]

christopher nolam make movie too hard, make brain hurt
i dont like when movie reminds me i'm not smart
batman good, not too hard for brain to think = feel smarter than christopher nolam

[movieboy]

I am not really a big fan of Nolan's Batman movies - they are OK, but I think Nolan is too talented to be wasting his time on superhero crap. Even if I wasn't happy with Tenet, I still rate it higher than 2 of the Batman movies.

Memento (Tier10)
Prestige (T10)
Inception (T10)

TDK (T8)
Interstellar (T8)

Tenet (T7)

Insomnia (T6)
Batman Begins (T6)

Following (T5)

TDKR (T3)

Dunkirk (T1)