Tenet (2020)

Blitz · Sep 1, 2020

Saw this tonight in a Dolby Cinema equipped theater.

I honestly can't believe a movie like this got made, with that kind of budget. It's not his "best" movie (the idea is just so insanely complex), but the set pieces are crazy. It's just, it's sorta insane how this was filmed. I don't even know what I'd rate it, but I did really enjoy it. The pay-off was pretty good as well. It's just a very hard movie to follow, while taking in those set pieces. I just can't get over how complex and bold this movie is, knowing it's going to turn off a lot of viewers.

Props to Nolan. He's the only fucker alive that could put out some shit like this. I think this movie will be fairly polarizing in terms of public opinion. It's a convoluted narrative. Definitely has a "The Prestige" feel to it, in ways.

ubiquitrips · Sep 1, 2020

I ended up seeing this last night, I don't quite know how to describe it. Great scenes, action, concept, etc. However, I think either I am dense or just need to be spoon fed a bit more to really understand what is going on with inversion. Basically, after the first inversion / highway, especially after the second trip to Oslo, I just lost track and things just became a fun watch. Perhaps they knew COVID was coming and were making up for socially distanced theaters by folks needing to see this many times.

I figured the fight in the Oslo airport was with himself or Pattinson, but watching it 'both directions' was pretty cool.

I want to watch it a second time and pay closer attention to the first half of the movie. I think there are going to be a good number of inverted easter eggs that I didn't quite understand. I went in to this movie thinking inversion was effectively a super power. Instead, it is just a thing. For example, during the 'let's learn about inverted munitions' scene with the wall / gun, I got a bit confused in how the bullet gets into his hand if he is not in control of the inversion at some level. When did future him drop it? The final fight scene where the wall came from? Some other time?

Other random things, 'suicide pills don't work' from the beginning of the movie. Does this mean that the suicide pill about to be used by Andrei in the end is going to fail?

I got really lost when Pattinson started inverting multiple times, especially in the end. My mind really bent when I started trying to figure out how they control for multiple groups of people inverting any number of times at different points in time and how it all fits together.

Raes · Sep 1, 2020

ubiquitrips said:
I ended up seeing this last night, I don't quite know how to describe it. Great scenes, action, concept, etc. However, I think either I am dense or just need to be spoon fed a bit more to really understand what is going on with inversion. Basically, after the first inversion / highway, especially after the second trip to Oslo, I just lost track and things just became a fun watch. Perhaps they knew COVID was coming and were making up for socially distanced theaters by folks needing to see this many times.

I figured the fight in the Oslo airport was with himself or Pattinson, but watching it 'both directions' was pretty cool.

I want to watch it a second time and pay closer attention to the first half of the movie. I think there are going to be a good number of inverted easter eggs that I didn't quite understand. I went in to this movie thinking inversion was effectively a super power. Instead, it is just a thing. For example, during the 'let's learn about inverted munitions' scene with the wall / gun, I got a bit confused in how the bullet gets into his hand if he is not in control of the inversion at some level. When did future him drop it? The final fight scene where the wall came from? Some other time?

Other random things, 'suicide pills don't work' from the beginning of the movie. Does this mean that the suicide pill about to be used by Andrei in the end is going to fail?

I got really lost when Pattinson started inverting multiple times, especially in the end. My mind really bent when I started trying to figure out how they control for multiple groups of people inverting any number of times at different points in time and how it all fits together.

The inversion stuff doesn't make any sense, at all. Trying to make it make sense will just give you headaches. If you're fine with it not making sense, I guess you can enjoy this movie. If you're not, it's pretty boring.

hory · Sep 1, 2020

Any good bootlegs of this out and about ? I see it opened internationally first so that usually lends itself to getting the rips out pretty quick.

Goatface · Sep 1, 2020

hory said:
Any good bootlegs of this out and about ? I see it opened internationally first so that usually lends itself to getting the rips out pretty quick.

not that i have seen, can see the screenshot spronk post above, they are all about that quality, some have ads, others extreme cropping. even if ok with washed out 70's drive in look, apparently the audio is even worse

Jozu · Sep 1, 2020

The cam I watched was decent.

What a retarded movie though. maybe you just need to watch it a few times to really appreciate it, but holy fuck is that inverted stuff gnarly. There is just too much to unpack, when you try to dig or imagine its true potential in every facet of physics and how each person could potentially interact with another when inverted, it makes your brain hurt.

The visuals and action sets were A+, and for some reason I feel like Pattinson has turned a corner with his acting. He was always a pretty good actor, Twilight kind of made some people just hate on him, but over the past few years he has taken some diverse roles and has been pretty good in all of them. Especially in Tenet, he has this cool demeanor that always makes you feel like Washington has a sturdy sidekick, even if his motivations and background are somewhat unclear.

He never felt annoying in the sense like "I HAVE SOMETHING UP MY SLEEVE!" he just did his job and it worked very well. Washington isnt a bad actor himself, but has a long way to go.

What the fuck was up with the whole if you touch another version of yourself equals annihilation? Didnt Washington fight himself and nothing happened? I must have missed something, so many questions.

velk · Sep 2, 2020

Jozu said:
What the fuck was up with the whole if you touch another version of yourself equals annihilation? Didnt Washington fight himself and nothing happened? I must have missed something, so many questions.

It's just skin to skin contact apparently, remember the chick tries to get him to wear the suit to avoid it.

Overall I though this was pretty good. It was more technically impressive than enjoyable for me though, so not up to the level of Inception or the Prestige.

It's certainly not like anything else I've seen, and is ambitious as hell - the raid scene was pretty amazing, and the fight at the freehold just gets better as you think about how the fuck they managed to film that in the first place.

I think it would lose a lot as a non-cinema movie - the soundtrack in particular adds so much to the intensity, having it on some poorly balanced home speakers would just shit it up horribly.

Pattinson was great, as was the head commando. Kat was freakishly skinny though, it was actually kind of distracting.

Bondurant · Sep 2, 2020

Jozu said:
The cam I watched was decent.

I don't want to sound like a cunt but watching any Nolan movie with a CAM when IMAX / 70mm formats are how his films are intended to be watched, well with all due respect, you're kind of missing the point.

TomServo · Sep 2, 2020

Bondurant said:
I don't want to sound like a cunt but watching any Nolan movie with a CAM when IMAX / 70mm formats are how his films are intended to be watched, well with all due respect, you're kind of missing the point.

Jozu is a mouth breather.

Jozu · Sep 2, 2020

Everyone has their own opinion, even if mine tends to be retarded most of the time.

And cmon you can do better than that, wheres gavinmad.

Obviously watching it proper in theater would have changed my opinion of the film, but I dont think it would have made me understand things any better.

Ossoi · Sep 3, 2020

Considering the quality of the sound mix (a common complaint with Nolan films), you'd have to be retarded to watch a pirate copy

Hard to pardon: why Tenet's muffled dialogue is a very modern problem

Christopher Nolan’s latest blockbuster is already infamous for its barely audible exchanges. As sound technology advances, why are films getting harder to hear?

www.theguardian.com

joz123 · Sep 3, 2020

Jozu said:
Everyone has their own opinion, even if mine tends to be retarded most of the time.

And cmon you can do better than that, wheres gavinmad.

Obviously watching it proper in theater would have changed my opinion of the film, but I dont think it would have made me understand things any better.

Intrinsic · Sep 4, 2020

I can fly to Alaska for like $109 but two tickets to a god damn movie is forty bux!

Bondurant · Sep 4, 2020

I've already seen it on regular 2D 35mm format, gonna watch it Tuesday in 70mm because I'm curious.

Again I don't wanna be "that guy" because I think Tenet, while a quite good film, isn't a masterpice, let alone Nolan's masterpiece, but since Dunkirk I'm curious about watching a Nolan film "how it been seen". I know it's kind of pedantic but I'm eager to watch Tenet's action scenes with enhanced experience, and most likely better sound mix.

rhinohelix · Sep 4, 2020

It's not that it's hard to follow, they deliberately hide stuff from the audience and some of the characters right up to the end. It unfolds slowly, taking its time and reveals what it is (we know more about what it is, thanks trailers) to its participants. It's Memento-level audience deception through the Protagonist, with Inception rulesmanship and an attempt at Interstellar parenting and and a dash of Dunkirk timelines. All with the spectacle of the Dark Knight.

The sound mix is on the theater; where I saw it tonight the things you are supposed to hear you can hear fine, with a little Bane talking through masks in one part. The score is incredible, btw, although you can tell it isn't Hans Zimmer, its a good/great alternate.

When people say they weren't emotionally engaged, I can only guess they mean by Kat-and-kid's story, and honestly, I didn't find that it even comes close to MURPH! levels of parental involvement. It just didn't. Her acting was good (I imagine her playing for the (EDIT:AUS) Olympic volleyball team; wow, what a gazelle) but you never see the kid, so the audience never gets a chance to engage with him in that way and with that aspect of the story; He has to be a character as well to feel that relationship; as it is he is her McGuffin. I didn't think that it hurt the movie that much though.

Branaugh was good, better acting than he has done in a long while but the inscrutability of the villain was a weakness.

When he does reveal in the past that the reason the Future wants to reverse entropy the whole world 5 min before the end of the movie is because of !!!Climate Change!!!, I was a sad. What a stupid cliched trope. You can reverse time/entropy and you are going to kill the planet via Grandfather Paradox because of climate change? Major League WTF.

The movie, though, is a technological masterpiece. There is no one working today that is close to Nolan's level, or even in his league. I was in total awe during the final 30 min watching the movie finale play out as it does. Holy Amazeballs, Batman. You have never seen anything like it. You have never seen anything like this at all.

So, this is another must see from Nolan; it might leave you cold; hell, I just walked out of the theater so it might leave me cold after the shock of the first viewing in a cinema for the first time in 8+ months or so. It's ambitious, it isn't perfect, and it isn't expecting you to understand everything on your first time through. The characters don't; why should you? The amount of craftmanship, though, is unbelievable, and its a great reason to go to a cinema and look at a 6'3" woman's ass in a bikini.

Intrinsic · Sep 4, 2020

I figured it out. Nolan made this movie with the intention of you spoilering the whole thing prior to going in so that you can just sit back and relax and enjoy it. He wants you to invert your viewing experience. It makes perfect sense now!

kegkilla · Sep 4, 2020

Just got out of this. Definitely a very Nolan movie, and not necessarily in a good way. I couldn't understand 30-40% of the dialogue, though I'm pretty bad with accents so some of that is on me. I'm kind of split on the concept of inversion. It's a pretty cool plot device on one hand. On the other, if you think through it, if you think through it enough, it opens up all sorts of plot holes and gets kind of retarded. The explosion freezing shit when inverted stood out to me as particularly retarded. By the end of the nearly 3 hour movie my ADD kicked in and a lot of the final sequence was lost on me. I think the implication was that

Robert Pattinson's character dies when going back into the operation? The bad guy's arc was pretty lame. Towards the beginning it seemed like he was going to be a pretty fleshed out character, but somehow that devolves into him wanting to end the world out of spite just because he's dying of cancer? And why the hell would his minions go along with that plan knowing this? Really just dumb.

All in all it kind of struck me as an attempt to do something in the vein of Inception, but it was far less coherent, had less interesting/believable characters, and didn't have the phenomenal acting performances of Inception. In fact, my biggest takeaway coming out of this is that I want to watch Inception again.

kegkilla · Sep 4, 2020

rhinohelix said:
It's not that it's hard to follow, they deliberately hide stuff from the audience and some of the characters right up to the end. It unfolds slowly, taking its time and reveals what it is (we know more about what it is, thanks trailers) to its participants. It's Memento-level audience deception through the Protagonist, with Inception rulesmanship and an attempt at Interstellar parenting and and a dash of Dunkirk timelines. All with the spectacle of the Dark Knight.

The sound mix is on the theater; where I saw it tonight the things you are supposed to hear you can hear fine, with a little Bane talking through masks in one part. The score is incredible, btw, although you can tell it isn't Hans Zimmer, its a good/great alternate.

When people say they weren't emotionally engaged, I can only guess they mean by Kat-and-kid's story, and honestly, I didn't find that it even comes close to MURPH! levels of parental involvement. It just didn't. Her acting was good (I imagine her playing for the UK Olympic volleyball team; wow, what a gazelle) but you never see the kid, so the audience never gets a chance to engage with him in that way and with that aspect of the story; He has to be a character as well to feel that relationship; as it is he is her McGuffin. I didn't think that it hurt the movie that much though.

Branaugh was good, better acting than he has done in a long while but the inscrutability of the villain was a weakness.

When he does reveal in the past that the reason the Future wants to reverse entropy the whole world 5 min before the end of the movie is because of !!!Climate Change!!!, I was a sad. What a stupid cliched trope. You can reverse time/entropy and you are going to kill the planet via Grandfather Paradox because of climate change? Major League WTF.

The movie, though, is a technological masterpiece. There is no one working today that is close to Nolan's level, or even in his league. I was in total awe during the final 30 min watching the movie finale play out as it does. Holy Amazeballs, Batman. You have never seen anything like it. You have never seen anything like this at all.

So, this is another must see from Nolan; it might leave you cold; hell, I just walked out of the theater so it might leave me cold after the shock of the first viewing in a cinema for the first time in 8+ months or so. It's ambitious, it isn't perfect, and it isn't expecting you to understand everything on your first time through. The characters don't; why should you? The amount of craftmanship, though, is unbelievable, and its a great reason to go to a cinema and look at a 6'3" woman's ass in a bikini.

See, I completely missed the bit about him destroying the world because of climate change. Was that revealed when he was on the walkie talkie on his boat? Because I couldn't understand a word of that.

rhinohelix · Sep 4, 2020

China Bat Soup said:
See, I completely missed the bit about him destroying the world because of climate change. Was that revealed when he was on the walkie talkie on his boat? Because I couldn't understand a word of that.

This is when he is talking via "CIA phone"/the flip phone from the yacht off Vietnam to the Protagonist while the bomb counts down as they are almost putting the algorithm in the ground in the hyperchamber, right before Kat kills him. THE FUTURE wants to kill/reverse entropy the past because "their seas rose and their rivers dried up. It was our fault..." blah blah blah

I see most of my movies at IPIC, which is a smaller theater that serves food. I guess if someone is seeing this in a theater with a different sound set, oriented to a different mix/has to be much louder for a larger space, it could change that. That must suck but I nearly went mad when I took my daughter to see Frozen 2 and the "showtunes aficionado" a few pods over sang all the songs on opening day. I can't imagine having to deal with large crowds in a theater.

Jozu · Sep 5, 2020

Whats fucked up is with a few tweaks, and some more feedback maybe, Nolan could have dumbed down certain aspects of inversion. It would have helped the pacing and allowed viewers to "watch" his spectacle, rather than being caught up in trying to constantly digest what the fuck is going on. It could have been a 9/10 imo.

The reason why Inception worked so well, and was better, (albeit after a couple views) was the slick cinematography and quality delivery of exposition. The story told itself through character interaction and motivation.

With Tenet, he banked more on the audience having a high brow approach along with unlimited attention spans. He also dialed way back on exposition. (not much after bullet sequence) I guess really smart, attentive people will have a better go, but I think the average viewer is going to have problems with reverse entropy and freezing explosions. And like others have stated, the antagonists motivations combined with global warming apocalypse shit were just plain stupid. I will watch this again on DVD release and maybe it will grow on me.

Tenet (2020)

Lord Nagafen Raider

Vyemm Raider

Bronze Baronet of the Realm

Avatar of War Slayer

Bronze Baronet of the Realm

Trakanon Raider

Ahn'Qiraj Raider

Bronze Baronet of the Realm

Potato del Grande

Potato del Grande

Person of Whiteness

Ahn'Qiraj Raider

Dental Dammer

Person of Whiteness

The Big Mod

The Big Mod

Dental Dammer

Bronze Baronet of the Realm