TENET OPEN SPOILERS
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Just out of the cinema. Enjoyed this. It was a 5/5 for me up until that last section which was pretty poor. So maybe a 4/5 overall.
Surprised people found it hard to follow. I saw all the twists coming a mile away cos everything is over-explained to make sure you don't miss anything. Not a criticism really. That's expected from a movie with a budget this large.
Also, they could have definitely added like another couple of one on one inverted time fights. That was sick.
Surprised people found it hard to follow. I saw all the twists coming a mile away cos everything is over-explained to make sure you don't miss anything. Not a criticism really. That's expected from a movie with a budget this large.
Also, they could have definitely added like another couple of one on one inverted time fights. That was sick.
The more you think about it the harder it is to follow, I can completly get someone seeing it and thinking oh ya fine, and at the same time someone confused the hell out of it.
Oh 100%. There's certainly plenty to think about and I'm sure there's complex graphs and stuff floating around explaining the timeline etc. But I think the core plot is easy to follow. Maybe I misunderstood when people were saying they were confused. I was trying to avoid spoilers up until right now :).
Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas Interview INCEPTION - They Talk 3D, What Kind of Cameras They Used, Pre-Viz, WB, and a Lot More! - Collider.com
Christopher Nolan and Emma Thomas Interview INCEPTION - They Talk 3D, What Kind of Cameras They Used, Pre-Viz, WB, and a Lot More!
Interviewer: Did you have a long conversation with your actors, especially Leonardo, about the concept of the movie which is quite surprising? I mean for you guys to be on the same page as far as dreams and what can…
Nolan: Oh yeah, definitely. Leo primarily because he was the first to come on board. And he's an actor who's absolutely relentless in his demands for authenticity of the character. The truthfulness of what he talks about the underlying truths of the character-emotional truths. The journey that character is on, and so we spent months talking about the script and re-writing the script. I spent a long time re-writing the script to make sure that the emotional journey of his character was the…that's the driving force of the movie. That's the journey the audience is on and he, as a great actor and a great movie star with his charisma and his emotional openness to the audience, he carries the audience through on that journey.
Seems like Tenet needed this.
Apparently there was an inversion machine on the boat.
Yup, I was fine for the most part except tbe initial bullet demo , which still causes me problems. When looking for explanations online, wow I got confused after that!
My best reconsiling with the bulet demo and free will, is to think about the movie 'Arrival' where at one instant we know the timeline, yet we can still effect changes they just propogate instantly forwards and backwards in time (which is not linear so forwards/backwards doesn't even make sense )
Just came from a second viewing and I think I got mostly everything quite clear now. Still think the pacing in the beginning is all over the place but I'm pretty fine now with the rest (even the chaotic finale).
I'm still not 100% sure about the nature of Sators and inverted-Protagonists cars during the highway scene. I come to the conclusion for them to behave like in the film, the cars have to be inverted. Otherwise the crash, the reverse-speed and damage on the side mirror of Neils car just don't make sense to me. Also you don't see reversing lamps so those cars have to be in forward gear.
But Nolan never explicitely shows a car going through the Inversion machine. And who placed the inverted car inverted-Protagonist uses so neatly there?
This whole thing is especially frustrating to me because Protagonist asks Aaron Taylor-Johnson about driving in inverse world and he just gives some non-answer.
I'm still not 100% sure about the nature of Sators and inverted-Protagonists cars during the highway scene. I come to the conclusion for them to behave like in the film, the cars have to be inverted. Otherwise the crash, the reverse-speed and damage on the side mirror of Neils car just don't make sense to me. Also you don't see reversing lamps so those cars have to be in forward gear.
But Nolan never explicitely shows a car going through the Inversion machine. And who placed the inverted car inverted-Protagonist uses so neatly there?
This whole thing is especially frustrating to me because Protagonist asks Aaron Taylor-Johnson about driving in inverse world and he just gives some non-answer.
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Almost all of the "human elements" fell flat. I think the most singular example of this is when, after briefing Elizabeth Debicki about the literally planet / reality ending threat, which will wipe out all life on earth, she exasperatedly gasps "Including my son!"
I think the film could have worked a lot better than it did with less relentless pacing, more time to breathe. You'd need to restructure it to cut out a major setpiece otherwise it would bloat to 3.5 hours long, but there was very little time to meditate on what was happening before it pounded straight into the next scene.
There was some wasted setup, like when the lady says "don't touch yourself, or you'll explode!" You can't just say that then not have somebody explode on contact with their past self - come on. That would have been a great finishing move on the main villain tbqh. Don't be a coward Nolan, give me what I want!
The volume in the theater was obnoxious too. Everything was loud, not just explosions and gunfire - waves were loud, cars in the street were loud, fires were loud. All of it.
I think the film could have worked a lot better than it did with less relentless pacing, more time to breathe. You'd need to restructure it to cut out a major setpiece otherwise it would bloat to 3.5 hours long, but there was very little time to meditate on what was happening before it pounded straight into the next scene.
There was some wasted setup, like when the lady says "don't touch yourself, or you'll explode!" You can't just say that then not have somebody explode on contact with their past self - come on. That would have been a great finishing move on the main villain tbqh. Don't be a coward Nolan, give me what I want!
The volume in the theater was obnoxious too. Everything was loud, not just explosions and gunfire - waves were loud, cars in the street were loud, fires were loud. All of it.
I guess she meant skin contact because JDW was all over his past self in the airport
I think that was the implication, although it makes no real sense.
If being reversed in time turns all particles into their antiparticles (another phenomenon it discusses explicitly in the text, with positrons being electrons with a reversed flow of time) then any matter touching you while reversed would result in annihilation, not just yourself. So it can't be as simple as that, it's like a special time travel rule they've invented but it just never is important to the plot.
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Tenet Coming to Select Drive-In Theaters in Los Angeles Area!
For those in Los Angeles who have been avoiding heading to an indoor theater to see the latest Christopher Nolan blockbuster due to the safety concerns, the wait has paid off as Tenet is coming to select drive-in theaters in the Southern California region.
www.comingsoon.net
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was realllly sad when i heard Zimmer wasn't gonna do it, but this dude is legit! Really great OST.... movie was confusing af at first but made more sense an hour or soo in I was legit pissed off at my theater because i got their for the 2pm showing and they started the movie at 2 on the nose no trailers before soo i missed the first 2-3 minutes and it felt like i was in the middle of the movie... otherwise it 100% needed subtitles, also Nolan really loves filming actors with masks, with loud ass scenes you can barely hear their dialogue..... Really cant wait for a second viewing! Something even cooler was i was the only person there at the theater lol
Denis is a better director, but Nolan does have interesting and unique ideas for films, they are just not executed 100% of the time. I'd say its batting 80% now! I have no interest in DUNE or the actors in that film... I think the lead Timmy C or whatever his name is is overrated AF! Im only seeing for Denis' direction, only Denis and Nolan do that for me!
I seen that character theory it could work, but then i thought about how he acted when caring for Kat's character he would still be worried about his mom even if he knew she would be ok, also why even keep it a secret from Protag??
Also Rob was fucking awesome in this movie.... he hasnt disappointed in one of his films yet! Wish he was in this even more than he was!
Also wasnt this movie close to 3 hours long??? I thought i rememver reading about it being that long.. Anyone know about possible deleted scenes... I know Nolan is known to not show them if their are though, hope the bluray has some! I really want a making of docu really bad alsp!
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I like Rob as an actor, but I wasn't feeling his relationship with JDW and his overall impact to the movie.
There was just too many other people and too many things happening.
I just got out of my showing of this and there was clearly something wrong with the audio at my theater so I thought I was missing plot points left and right now. But it would seem I'm not the only one confused as pissed by this movie. I am not sure if it was just the music being none existent in my showing or if it was just the low recordings but the movie was very hard for me to follow. I didn't understand what was happening from one scene to the next. Like I don't understand why that painting was a plot point at all. After not liking Dunkirk this movie has convinced me Nolan has lost his touch.
She had an affair with an artist who forged a painting. Her job is to assess paintings before they are sold for hundreds of millions of dollars. She fucked up and told her husband that the painting was not a fake and then the husband found out about it and is now using it as blackmail over her. he wont let her leave him or he would turn her over to the cops for scheming to get her lover millions of dollars.
this last bit is important because if she gets convicted she loses the custody battle and never gets to see her son again.
so JDW promises her that he will make the painting disappear. thats why they crash the plane through the terminal, to not just go and find what Sator is hiding in there but also to go and destroy the painting. which they dont end up doing because they get into that fight.
Yeah I didn't get any of that. Maybe the audio in my theater was just that fucked up but it was really hard to follow what was happening in the movie.
no it was the same in my theater and every other theater. nolan and his audio guy did this on purpose. something about wanting movies to be more than just a passive experience.
i made out most of the details on my second viewing.
literally laughed reading this, just ridiculous how bad it is that a second viewing means you should make out most of the dialogue
but I'll wait for digital to give it another watch, I still really enjoyed the film overall
if nolan wants audiences to be involved so much, maybe he should try making video games. not a passive experience. making shit hard to hear is just annoying.
that said, im pretty sure there is a scene in the movie where someone says dont try to understand it, feel it when explaining inversion. Nolan is going full kojima here. meta as fuck.
A better way to think of this when Protag starts bleeding in Oslo before the fight. Why? Because he was bleeding from the fight then during the normal timeline. You're experiencing the effects that happened on your body during that time, even if they haven't "happened" to you yet while inverted. The broken mirror is the same thing.
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Come to think of it my ears were perked up and I wasn't checking my phone at all trying to hear everything
By that same logic, it might be hard for inverted-Neil to be picking the lock in the underground bunker while he has a bullet in his head.
This has actually been mapped out logically on reddit threads I've seen discussing this.
If we look at it from inverted Neil's perspective. He would've walked into the mine shaft, unlocked the door, held it open for our normal moving characters, closed it, and then drop to the floor as the bullet round suddenly appears in his head, he'd then writhe a bit, before finally dying. As he's dead, the bullet in his head would then travel out of his head and into the villain's gun.
As we saw with P, the wound didn't automatically start bleeding. It slowly got worse as he approached the event. So, the same would occur with Neil with a bullet hole slowly taking shape in his head.
Have to say, I thought it sucked.
The world this movie showed felt as empty and artificial as the dream world in Inception. The Rock's family in Hobbs & Shaw were more believable characters. A collection of weirdly isolated parcels of reality populated by people who had no clear motivation as an excuse to show a bunch of disjointed action scenes. At least in Inception it made sense as they were nothing but video game levels representing defences in a world that only existed at the dreamer's pleasure.
Secondly, the reverse action was not filmed well. I know it's no one's idea of high art, but the only point of comparison I know of is the opening to Resident Evil Retribution:
That scene actually makes good on the novelty of tracing effect to cause. In Tenet it looked like people were randomly thrashing around. Fist fights are especially poor as "after" the punch there's no reaction or flinching because the effect is reversed, but the end result is it looks like the stuntmen are missing their marks. And there were so many cuts. That Resident Evil clip uses lots of slow long shots where everything is in frame. You think it's hard to follow modern fight scenes now? Imagine following it in reverse where understanding the plot is predicated on keeping track of every physical movement.
The world this movie showed felt as empty and artificial as the dream world in Inception. The Rock's family in Hobbs & Shaw were more believable characters. A collection of weirdly isolated parcels of reality populated by people who had no clear motivation as an excuse to show a bunch of disjointed action scenes. At least in Inception it made sense as they were nothing but video game levels representing defences in a world that only existed at the dreamer's pleasure.
Secondly, the reverse action was not filmed well. I know it's no one's idea of high art, but the only point of comparison I know of is the opening to Resident Evil Retribution:
That scene actually makes good on the novelty of tracing effect to cause. In Tenet it looked like people were randomly thrashing around. Fist fights are especially poor as "after" the punch there's no reaction or flinching because the effect is reversed, but the end result is it looks like the stuntmen are missing their marks. And there were so many cuts. That Resident Evil clip uses lots of slow long shots where everything is in frame. You think it's hard to follow modern fight scenes now? Imagine following it in reverse where understanding the plot is predicated on keeping track of every physical movement.
Just out of cinema. Loved it. Dialogue sound was bad at times, but I was able to follow the plot.
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This part also bother me. I barely see any of them nor inverted enemies. It made me confuse and forgot who they were fighting against. It look funny to me that they were just randomly shooting in the air
I enjoyed the movie but I didn't love it. Would put it towards the bottom of Nolan's filmography if not the very bottom. I think I understood most of the movie but I'll admit I had trouble following what was happening and what the characters motivations were (or who or what they represented).
Having seen it, I feel like the dials of what makes a Nolan movie were somehow in the wrong configurations.
The explanations for the concept of Tenet were too nonsensical, the emotional parts too condensed, the "reveal" too obvious...
I liked both Washington and Pattinson tho.
The explanations for the concept of Tenet were too nonsensical, the emotional parts too condensed, the "reveal" too obvious...
I liked both Washington and Pattinson tho.
Only saw the movie this week, but really enjoyed it (The story is a mess though).
Plus, all I could think of through the whole thing was this:
...and no one needs to remember that shit. ☹
Plus, all I could think of through the whole thing was this:
...and no one needs to remember that shit. ☹
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I was never bored
Something was always happening
It wasn't superb though.
Hahahahaha
is that what was going on there because I could make out fuck all of that plot
I enjoyed it without being blown away.
Agree with most critiques that you don't really connect too much with the characters or invest deeply in the story. I think all the actors do a good job, and I have a good enough time around them, but never truly feel connected.
In my screening (Imax) there was definitely a large amount of people murmuring at the end about not following it. I can't say I was on top of every single mechanic of the story, but found the overall flow simple enough and enjoyable to watch. I think the overall story is fairly clear, but aspects within it are sometimes difficult to follow (particularly in that final act bomb action sequence) - though that is somewhat intended it is nevertheless turning people off, and I would have liked some more clarity in parts, even if part of the fun is obviously the mind bending nature of things happening backwards and forwards at the same time.
I did get a big grin on my face when he went into the turntable thing after the car chase, immediately foreseeing him going back and being involved in the car chase and then in the airport too - really liked that.
Agree with most critiques that you don't really connect too much with the characters or invest deeply in the story. I think all the actors do a good job, and I have a good enough time around them, but never truly feel connected.
In my screening (Imax) there was definitely a large amount of people murmuring at the end about not following it. I can't say I was on top of every single mechanic of the story, but found the overall flow simple enough and enjoyable to watch. I think the overall story is fairly clear, but aspects within it are sometimes difficult to follow (particularly in that final act bomb action sequence) - though that is somewhat intended it is nevertheless turning people off, and I would have liked some more clarity in parts, even if part of the fun is obviously the mind bending nature of things happening backwards and forwards at the same time.
I did get a big grin on my face when he went into the turntable thing after the car chase, immediately foreseeing him going back and being involved in the car chase and then in the airport too - really liked that.
Yes, its needlessly convoluted because he feels obfuscating basic plot points in the first half is the only way to keep the audience intrigued before the timey wimey stuff happens.
Why didn't any of the characters just speak like normal people? Why did I feel like they were speaking English but also not speaking English?
I've seen this twice last month and I had a better experience the second time. It's a lot to take in on a first watch, but it becomes a different beast when you finally manage to properly follow the story since you already know the major plot points.
Still, this is a weird one. It's full of contradictions - it's very blockbuster-y in the sense that it's strangely superficial without any deeper meanings, but it's also complex and ambitious in the story that it tells - even after two viewings, there are things I'm certain I haven't fully understood yet. It's weirdly meta as well.
And I might get why Nolan decided to stay way of character depth - in this world of espionage, there is no room for emotional attachment - but it hurts the movie a lot, as it doesn't give us someone to grab on to (which is a shame when I think Washington, Pattinson and Debicki make the best trio Nolan has assembled so far, they all worked really well together). I've never found Nolan's movies to be cold, but this is the one where I agree with the critics.
And for example, the ending - when we find out The Protagonist and Neil are at different stages of their friendship - is a great concept that I find moving, but it feels too rushed that it lacks punch. I wish that was explored more throughout the movie.
Right now I'd put this in the bottom half of Nolan's filmography. And yet I kind of think this one, like The Prestige, is going to become more appreciated as time goes by.
Still, this is a weird one. It's full of contradictions - it's very blockbuster-y in the sense that it's strangely superficial without any deeper meanings, but it's also complex and ambitious in the story that it tells - even after two viewings, there are things I'm certain I haven't fully understood yet. It's weirdly meta as well.
And I might get why Nolan decided to stay way of character depth - in this world of espionage, there is no room for emotional attachment - but it hurts the movie a lot, as it doesn't give us someone to grab on to (which is a shame when I think Washington, Pattinson and Debicki make the best trio Nolan has assembled so far, they all worked really well together). I've never found Nolan's movies to be cold, but this is the one where I agree with the critics.
And for example, the ending - when we find out The Protagonist and Neil are at different stages of their friendship - is a great concept that I find moving, but it feels too rushed that it lacks punch. I wish that was explored more throughout the movie.
Right now I'd put this in the bottom half of Nolan's filmography. And yet I kind of think this one, like The Prestige, is going to become more appreciated as time goes by.
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Why the fuck did Nolan cram a convoluted art con relationship drama into an already convoluted plot and then make it the most confusing part of a movie that features time inversion paradoxes?
i think its funny because a lot of complaints I have heard so far is that there is no heart in this movie. Well, Nolan crammed in this relationship drama in this movie just to give it heart. This art con relationship sets up Kat's strained relationship with Sator, and also gives her motivation to work with the Protagnist to get her son back.
Also idk if it was just the cinema but I could barely hear any of the dialogue because the background music was too loud
LOL, it's not you, just check this thread and r/tenet. All the memes are about the audio.
The film is basically Nolan's most straightforward attempt to do a Bond film in his own way. However, its clear he wanted his Protagonist to be a sort of Anti-Bond. He doesn't give out his name. He doesn't drink on the job. He doesn't sleep with the target/villain's girl. And, he's completely out of his depth in the world of the elite. He's not going to know how to order some fancy cocktail.
Yet, at the same time he wants to have all the bougie shit that a Bond film has (and also weirdly a lot of Nolan's other films). So weird. The yacht scene is just another Bond homage where Bond and the villain take part in some crazy, upscale "sport" as the villain discusses his plans.
What's weird is that his whole ant-Bond schtick is dropped once it comes up against the plot. Sir Michael Caine is all like, "we got leverage on the girl. Look in the bag." And the Protagonist, a CIA Assassin who knows jackshit about eltist crap, is like "oh shit, you got a oya in there?" How the fuck does he know what a Goya painting is?
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