Tenet (2020)

[jah1986]

Finally saw this on HBO Max and I enjoyed it.  I didn't go in with any expectations, so my brain was hurting a bit by the end.  I didn't realize the protaganist was Denzel Washington's son until the credits. He did a good job and can really wear a suit.

I am going to have to watch again because I really couldn't figure a lot out with the plot, but was grateful that Avengers Endgame explained time travel...😄

[AngieBee1]

I went in completely blind, as I do with films nowadays as the trailers give away too much, and knowing Nolan's work I knew it would demand my full attention.  I completely got it on first viewing.  It's like Robert Pattinson said Nolan was surprised Pattinson understood the script after first reading it. But also like Pattinson, when I revisited it that's when the trouble started.  It's like what Clemence Posey's scientist character says in the film, "Don't try to understand it- feel it." And that what worked for me. If I ignored all the big concepts of inversion and time, and just focused on a story of a man trying to stop destruction and helping out a woman in an abusive relationship, it was easier on me.

[Dejana]

I finally watched this on HBO yesterday. Having the captions on helped, because I understood the gist of the story if not every little detail. For the final battle sequence, I was pretty lost. Character development is not really the point of a movie like this, but the ending would have hit harder if I cared more about the Protagonist and his motivations. Couldn't he at least get a name?

I looked up Tenet explanations after watching the movie and saw lots of speculation that Neil is Kat and Sator's son from the future. I'm not sure if that was what Nolan was going for, or if it makes sense with this movie's version of time travel, but I don't hate the idea of it.

Edited May 3, 2021 by Dejana

[tljgator]

On 5/3/2021 at 9:45 AM, jah1986 said:

was grateful that Avengers Endgame explained time travel...😄

Personally, I thank Futurama, which not only handled the 'science' of all this better, but also solved the riddle about the dying grandpa. *g* 

I appreciated attractive people in attractive clothes and Kenneth chewing scenery, which seems to be his go to mode for villainous turns these days, and good fight scenes -- all in all, fine for a Saturday night.

[AngieBee1]

Quote

 Character development is not really the point of a movie like this, but the ending would have hit harder if I cared more about the Protagonist and his motivations. Couldn't he at least get a name?

IMO character development is not really the point of any Christopher Nolan film.  If there is an emotional beat to be found it's thanks in part to the actors.  For example in "Inception" with Cobb's heartfelt pleading to Mal in the hotel room, that was Leonardo DiCaprio's suggestion.  I was surprised by the father/child relationships in "Interstellar" only to realize that Jonathan Nolan wrote the script and when he decided not to make it, he gave it over to Chris who made some changes to it (chiefly making the core relationship be between a father and daughter rather than a father and his son).  All that to say is that I find Nolan's films sterile, which I don't mind because his concepts are so thrilling. I just think he doesn't deal in character studies very well. 

[caracas1914]

Tenet on HBO was enjoyable,  an above average popcorn flick, but some of it just didn't make any sense to me.   I don't mean the slingshot time travel, but the fact that the villain literally wanted to kill everyone including his son if his life was ending.

When you have such a no holds barred over the top megalomaniacal  villain, and Kenneth at his best chewing scenery mode,  I at least expect 007 to come out and save the day.

As others mentioned, Nolan is interested more in his mind-game/conundrum byzantine plots  than any people in his movies.   The "concept" IS the film for him, and while it might come across as sterile and cold, hey at least it's not mindless action like so many films today.

John David  Washington I found a little wooden, in a Keanau Reeves Matrix kind of way,  and calling him pretentiously "The Protagonist" didn't help matters.   Plus unfair to Elizabeth Debicki but her role was sooo similar to what she played in "The Hotel Manager" on that tv miniseries that it was distracting to me.  Strangely enough, I thought Robert Pattinson was the best salvaged/character out of this, because he somehow managed real screen  presence and squeezed out some charisma. 

 

 

[VCRTracking]

On 5/10/2021 at 8:21 PM, caracas1914 said:

 

 Plus unfair to Elizabeth Debicki but her role was sooo similar to what she played in "The Hotel Manager" on that tv miniseries that it was distracting to me.  

 

 

Yeah but she now has great practice playing a wife in an unhappy marriage when she portrays Princess Diana in season 5 of The Crown!

I just watched the movie and was so confused. I'm probably going to watch some YouTube videos explaining it and then rewatch it.

Edited July 21, 2021 by VCRTracking

[Morrigan2575]

I'm so lost. LOL

[Ms Blue Jay]

On 5/2/2021 at 4:13 AM, TiffanyNichelle said:

I was bummed last year that I couldn't see this in IMAX but it turns out I think I understood it a little better watching it at home with the close captioning on. It was ok but not one of my favorite Nolan movies. Maybe a rewatch sometime later would help?

ETA I paused so many times to marvel at how much John David looked and sounded just like his daddy, a comparison I'm sure he's probably sick of, lol.

They have the exact same voice, it's so funny.

Edited July 21, 2021 by Ms Blue Jay

[VCRTracking]

Also they missed an opportunity to have the guy who played Viktor Krum as one of the henchmen so he could join Cedric Diggory and Fleur Delaceur in the movie!

[Trini]

Finally got around to seeing this. This was like *peak* Nolan. Nearly all exposition and action. But not enough heart or humor to make this a classic. Had to watch twice (with captions) to really follow the plot; but the last action scenes were an unnecessary mess. It looks pretty and pricey, but I was not impressed enough with the reverse entropy concept or the reverse filming/action to forgive the convolutions. Won't be watching this a third time, unlike Inception which is very re-watchable.

I did like all the actors, though. They weren't the problem. And there's more I can nitpick about the plot, but I don't want to give more energy to this film.

[shrewd.buddha]

I think I didn't actively dislike this movie because I watched it "free" on HBOMax, instead of paying to see it at a theater.

It was a ridiculously overcomplicated, Rube Goldberg puzzle of a parody of a James Bond movie.  Having read reviews and being forewarned, I went along with the early scientist's advice of "don't try to understand it." 

The first half of the movie felt like a series of robots meeting other robots and robotically exchanging information.  Protagonist lived in a turbine tower, for some undetermined period, for some reason. There were a lot of boats, watercraft, large trucks and aircraft .. for some reason. Protagonist spent a lot of time in different types of moving vehicles.

I basically got the impression that most of it did not matter:  The character's names didn't matter. What was being said didn't matter (because of the booming soundtrack and muffled mask-talk).  The character's motivations didn't matter (because Protagonist did not have any, besides blindly following his handlers' orders.) 
It basically boiled down to: Super-evil guy wants to destroy the world because he is super evil. Wife-person hates her  evil husband and loves her young son, tho most of her time is spent picking him up from school. Protagonist instantly becomes obsessed with protecting damsel-in-distress wife-person (who looks a foot taller than everyone around her).  There is countdown clock in the final act -- like in all good Bond movies.   There was something about time travelling objects. And an algorithm in a totem pole thingy. Good-guys win.  Bad-guys lose. 

On 10/31/2021 at 4:19 AM, Trini said:

And there's more I can nitpick about the plot, but I don't want to give more energy to this film.

I almost wanted to try to understand why Protagonist needed to take wounded wife-person back to the place/time when/where they crashed the airliner -- to see if they were running around in the background of the first time it happened.  But I just didn't want to give this movie any more of my time.  I would rather find the "cheat sheet" online somewhere. 
Also, when a person goes back in time and there are two of the same person existing side-by-side,  how does that resolve itself?  Does the future-person version just 'disappear' when past-person catches up to that point in time? 

Edited November 15, 2021 by shrewd.buddha

[childeroland]

She had to be inverted in order to help her heal, because Sator shot her with an inverted round. Then she had to be reverted to get her moving forward in time again. The protagonist could not do this with the turnstile in Tallin because Sator's people controlled it in the recent past, and going back would have gotten the Tenet people killed (at least Ives seems to believe so). So the protagonist had to revert her at the only other turnstile he knew about, the one in the airport. He and Neil had breached it a week ago with the airplane so they knew they could sneak in and use the turnstile to revert Kat.

 

The future person goes on moving forward through the timeline, while the past person continues along his path till he catches up. (For example, the past Kat who sees future Kat diving off the yacht at the end will go along the path we've already seen her take in the film, in which she eventually goes back in time, kills Sator, and throws him and herself off the yacht.) There aren't two separate people, just the same person moving through a particular moment twice/simultaneously.

[Anela]

On 5/2/2021 at 4:13 AM, TiffanyNichelle said:

I was bummed last year that I couldn't see this in IMAX but it turns out I think I understood it a little better watching it at home with the close captioning on. It was ok but not one of my favorite Nolan movies. Maybe a rewatch sometime later would help?

ETA I paused so many times to marvel at how much John David looked and sounded just like his daddy, a comparison I'm sure he's probably sick of, lol.

When I started to watch this tonight, I thought "I don't remember Denzel being cast in this." When his face was mostly covered, and he was talking. 

[DanaK]

I finally watched this this morning at home on DVD and it was definitely hard to comprehend, especially the last act, and I felt it was somewhat overlong. I had closed captions on so I maybe understood a little more than I would have watching it in a movie theater. I’m not sure I would call it a good movie due to the complicated plot but parts I found enjoyable. I do find Washington a bit stiff. This did well at the box office but I wonder if that was more for the actors involved rather than the movie itself

The thing I found hilarious was the multiple times characters discussed sensitive stuff in front of groups of strangers, like at the restaurant with Washington and Caine’s characters, and none of those people seemed to hear or batted an eye if they did

I didn’t know until the comments here that John David Washington was Denzel’s son

Edited July 19, 2023 by DanaK