Tenet

An incomprehensible piece of gibberish. No wonder this film is the lowest rated Christopher Nolan movie, it's like it's to twisty for its own good. It's one thing to make a complicated film to understand, but it's another thing to make a film that doesn't make the audience want to understand it. Nolan's films are very good, but he really fucked up on this one. It's a big budget science-fiction movie, with good production designs, and can be nice to look at. It also is lifted by a good cast, and a memorable performance by Denzel Washington's son, John David Washington. And the film has got an eerie score which helps to wrap up some tension. But even all these elements can't save this flick. And there's no sense trying to wrap up tension in a flick full of plot holes, which just amounts to a pile of nothing. Overall, Tenet had good intentions, but it's just not good. I did not enjoy it. I won't ever revisit this...

One of the worst movies I have ever seen, due to the most obnoxious sound track ever. What is wrong with having a movie where you can actually hear the dialogue? I suppose the background sounds are to raise the tension because the writing is so bad it doesn't do that. If this is the way for all action films then I resign from watching one again. Come on Hollywood and certainly Christopher Nolan, you can do better than that. I was so distracted by listening to endless deafening, horrible background sound I couldn't figure out the time travel. I want my $7 back. The only way to combat this is if everybody refuses to watch movies that use this technique.

Maybe Nolan's worst movie. Nonsense delivered with a poker face and a handsome sheen is still nonsense.

Another cerebral romp from Nolan. At times the muffled dialogue makes things a little difficult but the inventiveness and spectacle is all there.

Tenet, Christopher Nolan never disappoints. One of the best movies I have seen all my life, such a precise plot, crazy and confusing acting, amazing and correct preoccupation with space and time, crazy photography and perspectives of characters I have never seen in the cinema. At first the plot is a bit confusing and with time you realize the past events in the film and at the end you get to see the craziest closure I have ever seen.

Great movie! No politics, out of this world movie. Brilliant in every frame! Watched on 4K telly, but would love to watch in cinema!

Christopher Nolan did its job - it was something different but still the same of time travelling movie. I was quite happy that movie did not go into details of explaining the concept and was focusing more on the storyline.

Entertainment factor is off the charts. Quite difficult to understand at first, but it somewhat got easier as the movie progressed. I liken it to an action-packed, Christopher Nolan version of the movie Predestination. I wish the dialogue wasn't so posh though. Either way, really good movie.

Do I consider myself a Christopher Nolan fan? Well, I love The Dark Knight, but really, who doesn't? And I've seen all of his other works. And while I certainly don't hate any of his other works, I don't relish the idea of revisiting many of them. Like, I didn't even bother buying Dunkirk when I saw it for 5 bucks. Because I had to be honest with myself — would I voluntarily watch this movie again and be excited by the prospect of it? And the answer was no. It was a fine film, but it wasn't Private Ryan, you know? When I think of seeing Dunkirk in the theaters, I just remember a bunch of army soldiers in line at the beach waiting to get on the boat. That's it. Like all of Nolan's movies, it was very muted and cold. There's nothing in that movie, or really many of them, aside from The Dark Knight, that call me back for repeat viewings, unless I really want to dig deep and figure out the layered mysteries behind what's being presented on screen. And rarely do I want to subject my brain to that. I have a hard enough time trying to figure out my own life. And let's be honest? Can Nolan really carry the full credit of The Dark Knight? I don't know. I feel like the weight of that movie was mostly carried by Heath Ledger. I can't tell you a single line of dialogue delivered by Christian Bale or even Gary Oldman for that matter. Nonetheless, I was excited to see Nolan's newest entry, because I really do like his ideas even if I necessarily don't' love his executions. And this movie really does have a lot of good ideas, but let's talk about if they're executed any better than his previous works. Now this was supposed to be the return to movies, right? During the year of COVID. And movies, for just about everybody, means escapism. And if we needed escape more than any other time in our lives, what better time than in 2020? Now, to Nolan's credit, you really do have to immerse yourself completely into this particular movie in order to get any of it, so there's no room to think about today's reality, lest you miss something in this movie. And quite honestly, I think I missed a lot, because there's A LOT here. It almost feels like a math course. If you miss something you're going to be hard pressed to keep up in further lessons. So what I'm saying is, this may be escapism of sorts, but it's not relaxing. It's a film-going experience that takes hard work if you really want to know what the hell is going on here at all. Now it's funny that I watched this when I did, because if you follow my channel you know that I'm making my way through the James Bond movies for the first time, and I saw some parallels like opening up with a heist, and our protagonist, aptly named Protagonist, is very Bond like. I kept thinking, Forget Idris Elba, get this guy to be our next Bond. He's got the looks, the acting chops, the charm. So I look him up and he's the son of Denzel Washington — figures. He learned from living with the best. Oddly, I haven't seen any other movie yet with John David Washington, but if I'm going to make it out of this review saying anything positive about this movie, it's going to be all about him. He may not have been given any memorable lines from the script, but his delivery was cool and suave — like Bond. And it turns out, Nolan was considered for directing a Bond film, so I think in part that this is his attempt at making an espionage. So if you'll notice I'm talking circles around this movie because I'm a little afraid to actually dive into it. I feel like you've got to have an IQ of at least 120 to really figure this movie out, and I'm confident enough to admit that I'm not that smart. And I'm certainly not smart enough to dissect this movie and do it the justice it deserves. You know what this movie is? It's a Rubick's cube. Something I sure I could do after a lot of patience and a lot of time on my hands, and this movie would take several viewings for me to get. Let me break it down to its most simplest essence. Kind of like when Oscar has to explain what a surplus is to Michael. Tenet is about an agent who's hired to stop a bad guy from destroying the world by the means of the future killing us, the present. In order to stop the bad guy from starting WWIII, the Protagonist must go into the future and use the process called Inversion and fight the present all while moving backwards. Even dumming it down like that gives me a little headache because I just can't make sense of it. Like, whatever happened to time traveling with Doc Brown where it's just fun and laughs? I'm kidding of course, not every time travel movie has to be like that, but a little more light and fluff could have done this movie some good. It's just so self-serious, and I suppose I should expect that from Nolan, but my face hurt from furrowing and frowning the whole time just trying to keep up, and most of the time I couldn't, but luckily there were some fun action scenes to keep me occupied. But as to what was going on and why? I could only barely figure those questions out. So like a puzzle, some pieces, the action scenes, I can make out and understand the general direction it's supposed to fit into the puzzle, but when I step back and look at all the pieces at once, I can't really decipher what I'm looking at. So I take this movie scene by scene, and try to enjoy the scenes, and maybe they'll fall into place later. But in the end, I still end up with questions, which is fine, and I know I'd get many of them answered with a second or third viewing, but the question is, do I WANT to watch it again? I've got to be honest. I got bored out of my mind during this movie. It's about time travel and not since my schooling days have I wanted to jump forward in time so badly just to be done. I kept checking the time every five minutes once this 2-and-a-half hour movie reached the halfway point. And let me tell you, I've seen plenty of 3 hour movies that feel way, way shorter. Like, if I were to play this alongside Braveheart or the Wolf of Wall Street, both 3 hours long, those movies would be over first. It's easy to say that 30 minutes could have been shaved off this movie, but it's so complex, tightly stuffed, convoluted, that all that information has to be there. So in this case it wouldn't be fair to ask for 30 minutes to be cut, but I WOULD ask that there just be a little more fun. And I can say that this is the coldest and most stale of all of Nolan's movies because the main character doesn't even have a name — he's just called The Protagonist. There's no humanity there, as good as John David Washington is. He's written to be just a set piece. Even from the beginning, when we're introduced to him, he's a perfect human being. He'd rather die than give up his partners, so as far as character growth goes, there's no room for it. No need for a redemption arc. Because that's not what this movie's about. It's about a spy solving a crime that's yet to be committed, as far as I can tell, in a hardcore science-fiction movie. And if that's the kind of movie you want because you want to have fun and escape for a couple of hours, fine, go watch Minority Report. But this is for the type of people who will put their life on hold to solve a Crossword puzzle clue, and will stubbornly think their way to the answer refusing to Google it. This is for the people that have a whole lot of time and patience on their hands, and who are willing to really invest themselves in a difficult puzzle. And I do believe that if you're that person, you will be rewarded. I'm not that person. The only reward I want from my movie watching experience is just that. Being able to watch a movie is a reward in and of itself. I don't want to have to think too hard about what I'm watching. This movie asks too much of me. This movie is the self-checkout register at the grocery store. Why should I pay for my products AND do the work of a hired employee to check myself out? Makes no sense to me. Just seems a bit pretentious, it what it is. Now let's rate this movie. I'm probably going to get a lot of hate for this review, but I'll just go ahead and get this over with. Are there cool scenes and good action pieces in this movie? Yes. Is the acting good? Of course. Did I get ANY of this movie? Yes, I did, and it was gratifying. But would I want to watch it again? Hell. No. I just wanted it to end. I didn't care about the Protagonist. I did care about the woman he's trying to save — I didn't want her to come to harm, and I truly wanted her husband to die a horrific death — I'll give the movie that as far as my emotions go. And can I talk about his death for a moment? Remember that guy who fell off the back of the Titanic and hit the propeller on the way down? This death took that fall to a whole new level. It was brutal, and it was fun to watch. There was even a great fight scene in a kitchen where the Protagonist sliced some guy's face with a cheese grater. So this movie has moments of excitement like that, but that's all they are, they're' just brief moments. They're mere blinks in the course of an almost three-hour movie that feels like it's four hours. I didn't hate this movie, but I strongly disliked it, and that's my subjective opinion. Objectively speaking, it's a great film, and probably one to be studied on some level. But personally, it's not for me, and I don't ever want to go near it again. Therefore, on my list of 1,000 top movies, and keep in mind this is only the tenth movie I've reviewed, I'm putting this at number 11, just above Freaky, which is at 12. I would watch this before Freaky only because I know there's more for me to get out of it, and Freaky is just your every day ho-hum horror comedy that didn't do what this movie did: It offered something new. And I at least appreciate Tenet for that. Now for the Daily Dusting. If I were Thanos and I could whisk anything from this movie out of existence with a snap of my finger, it would be 30 minutes off this movie. I know I said it's not fair to ask for that, but I just can't get over how long it was and how little I got out of it. Just take out the science stuff. So there, 30 minutes from this movie is dusted, because I could do a lot worse and dust the whole movie, but I'm not going to do that because I know some people like it, and I really do appreciate that it's giving us something new. 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A shame due to covid i had to watch this on my sub-par TV instead of in IMAX.