Alright! I saw Tenet last Monday, and, extremely sorry for the bloated review date. I for sure thought I would be able to publish it on Wednesday, but alas, here I am.
School started back up, so Tuesdays and Thursdays I can't write anything, I spend Mondays doing homework, and for some reason, my brother was allowed to download Minecraft on the computer, so he never gets off.
But Tenet. Tenet is the latest film from director Christopher Nolan, who has directed not only some of my favorite films, but also some of the best films ever made: The Dark Knight Trilogy, Inception, Interstellar, and The Prestige. He also made Dunkirk, which some people really like. To me, that was more of an exercise in editing than anything else.
Christopher Nolan's movies often deal with time: In Inception, time moves slower the deeper you go into a dream. In Interstellar, time is distorted by a black hole. In Dunkirk, time is irrelevant and a tool to be edited.
So, Tenet's got that similarity. In Tenet, a future WWIII happens, and they find a way to "Invert" objects to flow backward through the time stream. Apparently, they've sent a device that would invert the entire world, which would kill everyone. The guy that they've chosen to do that is Sator (Kenneth Branaugh), an abusive Russian rich guy.
It wasn't too confusing of a plot, actually. So many complaints about the movie are "It was confusing," but the only thing that was actually confusing was this one scene which I will now explain: Two rooms are built around the machines that invert objects; one of them, going forward in time, is colored red. The other one, going backward, is blue. But they try to have a conversation with the two guys going back in time, and you see it, like, four times, once from the Protagonist's perspective forward and back, and one from Sator's side forwards and backward. Now that was confusing.
Also, the Protagonist of this movie is just called... the Protagonist. He doesn't have a name.
Another huge complaint about the film I've seen is that dialogue is hard to understand, often obscured by music, masks, and action. I didn't notice. It was all good. I only missed two lines-ish. One thing that I did notice was how much the bass was turned up. Man, I was shaking in my seat. Or, rather, the seat was shaking me.
The first half of this film was pretty confusing, not from a "Time inversion" sense, but just in a "What is this movie's plot?" The Protagonist goes from location to location, with quest to quest, meets with Elizabeth Debicki's character, like, seven different times, and it all seems to be setting up a huge set-piece where Christopher Nolan destroys a plane. This isn't a spoiler because it's shown in the trailer.
But, man. That plane crash was cool. Super cool, so cool. I forgive the first half of the film for the sheer joy of knowing someone ran a plane into a building because they thought it would be cool. And that the plane was a real plane. That made it that much better.
But where the movie really becomes cool is in the third act. The movie's 2h 30 mins long, and a lot of it is mindless noise you need to pay attention to, but the third act? Holy crap, that was cool. This is where they really take advantage of how cool inverted set pieces sound. In most other scenes, it was just a gimmick, but here it was the focus, and it was dope. Stuff exploded, guys.
Stuff exploded so well. Christopher Nolan is so gifted at blowing stuff up. True genius.
So that was awesome. Super awesome third act, I want to know how they made it.
But, any other good things about the film? Yeah, the relationship between Sator (Branaugh) and Kat (Debicki) was scarily realistic and unsettling. It was terrifying at some points. They definitely got the abusive part of the relationship down. Tenet had some very disturbing moments, all of which came from this scene.
Umm... Robert Pattinson's in this, and he was cool. Very cool. So was John David Washington as the Protagonist, who I found to be extremely likable despite his character faults.
I do have some complaints about the film though. It lacks any real emotional stakes. In Inception, you want to see Dom Cobb get back to his kids because that's his one goal, and it's extremely emotional when it does. In Interstellar, Cooper wants to get back to Earth because every day he's in space his daughter grows up more than he wants to miss.
In Tenet... there's nothing. There are no emotional stakes to the film (Other than the abusive relationship), and suffering particularly is the Protagonist, who doesn't have a huge drive to do anything in the film other than that he's "The Protagonist." Luckily John David Washington is able to save the character just by being a cool guy.
This may be the first Christopher Nolan original movie I actually want a sequel from, come to think of it.
Overall, I give Tenet an 7/10. "While it may not explore it's idea as much as it could or should have, Tenet zips by on exciting explosions and cool enough ideas to be an exceptionally fun spy thriller."
School started back up, so Tuesdays and Thursdays I can't write anything, I spend Mondays doing homework, and for some reason, my brother was allowed to download Minecraft on the computer, so he never gets off.
But Tenet. Tenet is the latest film from director Christopher Nolan, who has directed not only some of my favorite films, but also some of the best films ever made: The Dark Knight Trilogy, Inception, Interstellar, and The Prestige. He also made Dunkirk, which some people really like. To me, that was more of an exercise in editing than anything else.
 |
| John David Washington and Elizabeth Debicki in Tenet. She is... very tall. |
Christopher Nolan's movies often deal with time: In Inception, time moves slower the deeper you go into a dream. In Interstellar, time is distorted by a black hole. In Dunkirk, time is irrelevant and a tool to be edited.
So, Tenet's got that similarity. In Tenet, a future WWIII happens, and they find a way to "Invert" objects to flow backward through the time stream. Apparently, they've sent a device that would invert the entire world, which would kill everyone. The guy that they've chosen to do that is Sator (Kenneth Branaugh), an abusive Russian rich guy.
 |
| Meet the next stereotypical Russin badguy, Sator. |
It wasn't too confusing of a plot, actually. So many complaints about the movie are "It was confusing," but the only thing that was actually confusing was this one scene which I will now explain: Two rooms are built around the machines that invert objects; one of them, going forward in time, is colored red. The other one, going backward, is blue. But they try to have a conversation with the two guys going back in time, and you see it, like, four times, once from the Protagonist's perspective forward and back, and one from Sator's side forwards and backward. Now that was confusing.
Also, the Protagonist of this movie is just called... the Protagonist. He doesn't have a name.
 |
| The Protagonist. I shall call him squishy and he shall be mine and he shall be my squishy. |
Another huge complaint about the film I've seen is that dialogue is hard to understand, often obscured by music, masks, and action. I didn't notice. It was all good. I only missed two lines-ish. One thing that I did notice was how much the bass was turned up. Man, I was shaking in my seat. Or, rather, the seat was shaking me.
The first half of this film was pretty confusing, not from a "Time inversion" sense, but just in a "What is this movie's plot?" The Protagonist goes from location to location, with quest to quest, meets with Elizabeth Debicki's character, like, seven different times, and it all seems to be setting up a huge set-piece where Christopher Nolan destroys a plane. This isn't a spoiler because it's shown in the trailer.
But, man. That plane crash was cool. Super cool, so cool. I forgive the first half of the film for the sheer joy of knowing someone ran a plane into a building because they thought it would be cool. And that the plane was a real plane. That made it that much better.
 |
| 10/10 explosion. |
But where the movie really becomes cool is in the third act. The movie's 2h 30 mins long, and a lot of it is mindless noise you need to pay attention to, but the third act? Holy crap, that was cool. This is where they really take advantage of how cool inverted set pieces sound. In most other scenes, it was just a gimmick, but here it was the focus, and it was dope. Stuff exploded, guys.
Stuff exploded so well. Christopher Nolan is so gifted at blowing stuff up. True genius.
So that was awesome. Super awesome third act, I want to know how they made it.
 |
| This was a very, very cool third act. |
But, any other good things about the film? Yeah, the relationship between Sator (Branaugh) and Kat (Debicki) was scarily realistic and unsettling. It was terrifying at some points. They definitely got the abusive part of the relationship down. Tenet had some very disturbing moments, all of which came from this scene.
Umm... Robert Pattinson's in this, and he was cool. Very cool. So was John David Washington as the Protagonist, who I found to be extremely likable despite his character faults.
I do have some complaints about the film though. It lacks any real emotional stakes. In Inception, you want to see Dom Cobb get back to his kids because that's his one goal, and it's extremely emotional when it does. In Interstellar, Cooper wants to get back to Earth because every day he's in space his daughter grows up more than he wants to miss.
 |
| Tenet needed more child-centered motivations. It had one, yes, but what about a second one? |
In Tenet... there's nothing. There are no emotional stakes to the film (Other than the abusive relationship), and suffering particularly is the Protagonist, who doesn't have a huge drive to do anything in the film other than that he's "The Protagonist." Luckily John David Washington is able to save the character just by being a cool guy.
This may be the first Christopher Nolan original movie I actually want a sequel from, come to think of it.
Overall, I give Tenet an 7/10. "While it may not explore it's idea as much as it could or should have, Tenet zips by on exciting explosions and cool enough ideas to be an exceptionally fun spy thriller."
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