Tenet (spoilers)

So I finally decided to hit up the theater and go see Tenet, and I must say I haven't felt that confused/thrilled in a long time. The convolution of this movie makes inception look like child's play, and has time travel aspects on the level of Primer. Has anyone else seen this? What did you think? 

Comments

  • HunkuleseHunkulese Québec, Canada
    I think it's by far his worst movie if you don't count Dunkirk. It's convoluted just to be convoluted and is missing the heart that helped Interstellar and Inception so much. It suffers from the usual Nolan problem that it's so intentionally confusing that three-quarters of the movie has to be devoted to the supporting cast explaining what's happening, except this time everyone has a thick accent and half the time their mouths are covered in some way.
     
    I also saw it in IMAX, so it was way too loud. I'll give it another shot when I can watch it at home with subtitles, but I doubt my opinion will change much.
    FreddyBroRad33
  • I saw this about a month ago (back when Europe was still ok), and thought that the movie was definitely too confusing, to the point where the third act was nothing more than impressive visuals. I think the sound design which just made hearing impossible added a lot to how difficult it was to understand (my friend who had German subtitles to help clearly understood much more than I did). It's highly ambitious and I love some of the action scenes in it, but I didn't need to watch the movie again (both because of how utterly confusing it is, and because of covid) when I could (and did) watch a YouTube breakdown of it.

    Anyway, I hear the blu-ray comes out in December. I'm going to be interested in what Jim and A.Ron say about it.
  • Hunkulese said:

     
    I also saw it in IMAX, so it was way too loud. I'll give it another shot when I can watch it at home with subtitles, but I doubt my opinion will change much.
    I haven't seen this movie, but this complaint resonates with me so hard. When the hell did directors decide that action should be at 10,000,000 dbs while dialogue should be at 5? I have a decent soundbar with a sub and receiver and have to constantly have the remote next to me to turn up dialogue scenes and turn down action sequences. So annoying.

    Also, yes, I realize this is super old man yells at cloud. 
  • I’ve never had so much fun watching a movie where I had no fucking clue what was happening. I even went home to read about it for a couple of hours and still felt like I wasn’t fully understanding it. But the first time the Protagonist went through that machine I was so amped up
  • Hunkulese said:
    I think it's by far his worst movie if you don't count Dunkirk. It's convoluted just to be convoluted and is missing the heart that helped Interstellar and Inception so much. It suffers from the usual Nolan problem that it's so intentionally confusing that three-quarters of the movie has to be devoted to the supporting cast explaining what's happening, except this time everyone has a thick accent and half the time their mouths are covered in some way.
     
    I also saw it in IMAX, so it was way too loud. I'll give it another shot when I can watch it at home with subtitles, but I doubt my opinion will change much.
    I hear you on just about every point, but still, I fucking loved this movie lol
    EMAW42
  • FreddyFreddy Denton, Texas
    edited October 2020
    Tenet is a prime example of a movie that I don't like, but I'm still glad it exists. You need guys like Nolan out there doing weird shit with a big budget. It keeps the artform moving forward.
    BroRad33
  • I saw it this weekend and I loved it. Its very interesting to see a lot of people having a different experience. I'm surprised to hear people found it confusing after watching the whole thing. I certainly felt confused during the movie but I believe that to be intentional to put us in the same frame of mind as the protagonist. Maybe I'm not as smart as I would like to think and missed a whole lot that I think I understand.

  • PreservedKillickPreservedKillick Tucson, AZ
    edited December 2020
    When can we start to hear more discussions about this movie?  It's available to stream now.
    I saw it over the summer and thought it was awesome.  The 747 crash was easily worth the price of the ticket.  You could tell Nolan thought so too, since he shows it 3 times throughout the film.  Pretty cool that the concept of the movie made that possible in a way that (sort of) made sense.
    Giovanni
  • I was searching all the podcasts did baldmove not discuss tenet yet?
  • I enjoyed it as a big budget, high concept B-movie.  I watched it with subtitles on so that may have helped understanding. 

    It's a shame it is (IMO) being marketed as some amazing Work of Art instead of the ultimate "spies with gadgets" movie with 100 million spent on trippy special effects.

    Lola_luvv
  • I saw it twice, and loved it every time!
  • I just saw this movie for the first time and I have never been as confused by a book/tv show/movie as i was with this. I couldn't even tell you the first 2-3 plot points in the movie if I wanted to let alone track the time-travel stuff. And still, it was completely awesome. Can't wait to see it again
    lengmo
  • This movie is a hot mess. I saw it in theaters and missed about a third of the dialogue because for some reason  important exposition was delivered by actors wearing gas-masks or over radio on some rich person SailGP f50 (Nolan might be a little out of touch XD ).

    This movie is the equivalent of Primer. Except Primer was made on a shoe-string budget and Tenet took hundreds of millions of dollars, all to get the same result.

    Later, I watched it at home with subs and it was a better, albeit still confusing, experience. I worry that Nolan may have inverted up his own ass a little too much with this one.

    P.S. the "protagonist was actually fighting himself" reveal was cool.
    ray_x03Giovanni
  • Any plans to cover this on the podcast? I think Jim and A-Ron might need an adoral to catch all the details, but would love to hear their thoughts.
    Giovanni
  • I just watched it this weekend - to me it was almost like Christopher Nolan was satirizing Christopher Nolan. It looked great, lots of exposition, convoluted brainteaser of a plot, wife-character in distress/danger, exciting soundtrack, Michael Caine, innovative action sets, ...   But little to no heart and once you "solve" the puzzle it is kind of like - "oh okay.  cool. But really why?"   Also,  as innovative and well-done as the action sets were, there were too many and they lasted too long, especially the finale.  Nolan is one of my favorite directors so I don't think Tenet is a fail, just not the best he has done.   I don't think I will rewatch this one like I do with some of his others.  
  • My favs of his so far are Memento and the prestige. This is somewhere in the middle tier for me, like inception
    Giovanni
  • Late to the party, but I just saw this movie on HBO max and it made my brain hurt! For the first hour of the movie, it felt as if I was watching a foreign film with no captions. Complete confusion on every level. By the end, I felt like I somewhat had a handle on it but requires a rewatch or two. My problem is that I’m not even sure if I want to even bother?! Maybe my expectations were too high?! Honestly, I just want to smoke whatever Nolan does when he comes up with these concepts. Wild shit!
  • MurderbearMurderbear Cold Spring, Ky
    I happened to think last night, hey, when is Tenet coming to HBO MAX? And I was absolutely delighted to see it was added on May 1st! I loved this movie. I feel like I understood maybe 60% of it but I really didn't mind at all. I was just along for the ride and I think that was Nolan's goal. To make a film that would be interesting enough to hook you, but also confusing enough to have to warrant at least another viewing.

    All of the performances were great. The action was VERY good. It's funny how something so simple as filming things backwards could produce such cool looking visuals. The fight scenes were awesome too. I may buy this just to watch the behind the scenes stuff and how those fights were choreographed.

    Definitely looking forward to more viewings and picking up on all the little things I am sure I didn't notice the first time. I am such a sucker for Nolan films and this one did not disappoint at all. Other than not being able to see this on an IMAX screen...
  • Teresa from ConcordTeresa from Concord Concord, California
    The mostly negative reviews helped me decide Nah” on this one. I don’t have enough time to watch the stuff I think looks good. 

    And...I was not a fan of Inception. Even though it had a stellar cast it wasn’t enough to support a weak story. I know technology has given directors the ability to film some crazy shit but - if it doesn’t make sense, is silly, is full of plot holes, or worse all three - then it’s just crazy shit. 
  • bizmarkiefaderbizmarkiefader San Francisco
    Coming into this movie with low expectations, not paying extra for it, and having subtitles on seems to have helped a lot cause I loved it. The physics of how the inversion works and the details of what people are doing in reverse is kinda confusing but it was so cool it didn't really matter, the plot is really just an excuse to have a bunch of action scenes where some people are moving in reverse. In the end they directly tell you what was going on so I don't think you really have to read between the lines too much as long as you can understand what the characters are saying.

    Nolan is a master of heist style scenes of people orchestrating complicated plans that are very loud. I always loved that opening scene of Dark Knight and this movie has like five of those and they're all awesome.
  • bizmarkiefaderbizmarkiefader San Francisco
    FWIW I really do think subtitles make all the difference. I was watching it at a relatively low volume cause I live in an apartment and I couldn't hear them at all. Just as Nolan intended, he loves it when you watch his movies at low volume with subtitles on.
    Murderbearray_x03
  • MurderbearMurderbear Cold Spring, Ky
    edited May 2021
    Yeah, I exaggerated a little about only understanding 60% but I do like that his movies make you do a little bit of work. They are certainly nowhere near the most complicated or toughest watches out there but I love the concepts he comes up with and the rabbit hole you can go down while figuring stuff out.

    Definitely agree with the subtitles. Unfortunately the only thing I have to watch HBO MAX on is my PS4 and I think the subtitles on that app are pretty ugly looking. It's a weird complaint but I hate their esthetic. I kinda went back and forth, turning them on and off in certain scenes. That man really does love hard to hear dialogue. The absolute worst was seeing Interstellar in the theater and the scene with Michael Caine in the hospital bed and the music blaring was so damn hard to hear! It was one of those "I get the gist of what he is saying but dammit, I would actually like to hear it" moments.
  • edited May 2021
    I bought the digital version of Tenet when it was released and was not that impressed. I'm a huge fan of most of his movies, but tend to like his earlier ones better. After the first watch I tried doing a rewatch a couple weeks later and kept falling asleep during the rewatch. I ended giving up, I'll go back to it eventually but it's a sign that the movie only partly sucked me in.

    I would rate it as one of his worst movies. Though I'll still go see anything he makes. 
Sign In or Register to comment.