TENET (Opens to $20 Million in U.S., Nears $150 Million Globally)

If you have seen TENET, how would you rate it?

  • Total voters
    128
Peteyandjia said:
Just got back from the theater.

First: it feels good to say that.

I’m lucky, I didn’t know hardly shit about this movie before seeing it. Just finally got around to it tonight. Nolan, black guy, something about time. That’s literally all I knew. Well, maybe it’s not really lucky: it’s really all by design. I always stay away from all info about a movie, once I already know I’m gonna see it. Looking through this thread now, it’s wild seeing all the drips & drabs of info you guys take in over months, sometimes years, forming opinions, all before you ever get to see the actual movie. Fuck is wrong with you people? Word of advice: Stop that shit, kids. It only detracts. I know ya won’t listen though.

So, the movie: I really enjoyed it. Keep in mind, my expectations were measured, because Nolan is almost always a mixed bag for me. What I expect from him: High concept ideas, highly jumbled execution, mesmerizing atmosphere, messy action sequences. TENET did not disappoint on any of those fronts. Watching his films, one thing I always wonder: Can Nolan ever direct a truly great fight scene, or gunfight scene? So far, the answer is still a resounding no. As bad as he wants to be Michael Mann, Nolan can’t seem to get anywhere near it. His gun scenes are always a total mess, 80s TV cop show level incompetent. His set pieces are often good — though he fails in being Mann, he often succeeds beautifully in being Brian DePalma — however, his action scenes, as soon as they involve machine guns & explosions, are downright tedious. On the fistfight side though, he did make some progress here — the protagonist’s kitchen fight against the Russians was good, not great but good — and that’s a step up for Nolan. Also, the one exception to this rule is that Nolan can sometimes make a fight scene work if it’s mixed with his high-conceptyness, ala the zero-gravity hallway fight in INCEPTION — and he pulls that off here, with the backwards fight of protagonist vs. protagonist in the vault. It’s inventive, it has a purpose, & most of all — it’s fun! And fun in cinema is magic.

The performances are a high point in this movie — James David Washington Anderson is quite good in the lead role, never seen this guy before, and for some reason I was expecting dull, or cardboard; but he was made out of real wood, a high-quality performance making what could have been kind of a shallow, one-note role feel real, compelling, & lived in. Twilight the Twinky-Dink Batman is fucking solid here in the wingman role, but I’ve already been wise to his secret awesomeness since his revelation in THE LIGHTHOUSE last year. They make a great team here, these two; it’s charming & exudes wonderful mystery & bromance throughout. Skinny giraffe neck blonde lady does a fine job, elevating an awkwardly written role. Sir Kenneth Braughnaughegh Knightingale the Fourth takes the hacky, way overly done to fucking death at this point Russian villain guy role, & somehow captures the room with it every time he’s onscreen. Props to the chops.

I left the theater after this film tonight full of thoughts & feels, and that’s something to be grateful for. As usual with Nolan, the mood is better than the story, the ideas are better than what he does with them, & the ride is better than the destination; I often feel like his movies are a first draft, that could have used a lot more working out. He’s like a 16 year old who just discovered philosophy or quantum physics, and tries to instantly own it & show it off to someone else, before he even really understands it himself; however the enthusiasm is charming, because it’s genuine. Time, Mortality, Memories... he Loves this shit, & it shows. It’s all in his wheelhouse, and while he doesn’t nail any of it, he often comes close to hitting the mark, & it’s damn fun to watch him try.
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Solid review
 
OMFG this movie fucking sucks so far. I am half way into this shit burger. Will update when done.

But first Dunkirk and now this Tenet shit, I am about ready to officially call it a rap on watching his movies from now on.
 
Drain Bamage said:
I think Nolan has asperger's. He keeps making the same movie over and over. Did anybody else laugh when Michael Caine popped up AGAIN? Dude is in every Nolan movie as "The guy that provides exposition" it's beyond a tired joke at this point.

Also wonder how many movies about the concept of time we are going to get. It's like he can't move off of it?

Memento - Time
Inception - Time
Interstellar - Time
Dunkirk - Time
Tenet - Time

WTF dude. Time and Michael Caine, we get it.

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He's said that Michael Caine is his good luck charm and he will keep using him as long as Caine is ready, willing, and able.

What I'd like to see him do is make a movie with both Bale and DiCaprio. Or with Tom Cruise. Ffs he's gotta get on that. Nolan and Cruise has to happen at some point.

Rocco Siffredi said:
OMFG this movie fucking sucks so far. I am half way into this shit burger. Will update when done.

But first Dunkirk and now this Tenet shit, I am about ready to officially call it a rap on watching his movies from now on.
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I didn't like Dunkirk or Tenet either. But I'll always at least keep an ear out for what he's doing next. If nothing else I have to give him props for refusing to shoot digitally, and for keeping his CGI use to an absolute bare minimum. Two fine qualities in my book.
 
Nolan needs to do another small scale film again. It's admirable that he keeps blowing up the balloon, but that shit is about ready to pop.
 
Adamant said:
I didn't like Dunkirk or Tenet either. But I'll always at least keep an ear out for what he's doing next. If nothing else I have to give him props for refusing to shoot digitally, and for keeping his CGI use to an absolute bare minimum. Two fine qualities in my book.
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I am 2 hours into it. So 3o mins left. I don't know if there is anything that can save this movie. His good movies had their surface story but were always about something else underneath.

My favorite director is David Cronenberg. And his last good movie was Spider. The rest of his movies don't even seem like Cronenberg movies.

I think this is the case with Nolan now. He had a damn good run. Kurbick is one of the few that ended on a good movie that felt like his movie.
 
I thought tenet was okay. Kinda confusing. But cool concept. Felt sad throughout knowing we lost a great actor. Was looking forward to black panther 2.
 
Ok so I finished it. Damn this movie sucked. I did like the main guy shooting that indian bitch at the end.
I didn't believe the main guy or the villain as their character at all. The story was terrible. The fights were potato copies of The Matrix. Zero investment.

I thought Robert Pattinson was really good in it and I did really like his character. I don't think it is cool having vampires taking human acting roles though.
Look forward to see what he does in the future.

There was no other meaning to the movie like say Inception or The Prestige.
 
Stalingrad9 said:
Still don't understand the principal of the bullet and all that stuff. Is it some scientific principle being lightly twisted for the benefit of the movie, or is it a complete invention. I don't get it. The movie does everything except explain how this shit actually works. Yeah some student found a formula and stuff is out there under the sea.
But for fuck sake it's a movie, try and give some explanation as to how it actually works. We ain't Einstein or whatever. Any bullshit explanation would have been good enough to keep the movie rolling. But in its state you're just playing catch up and understanding stuff half an hour after it happens. Tenet tenet tenet. Fuck that. It's frustrating lol. I think this would have been much better as a series than as a movie. Imagine all the plots you could actually develop over a few seasons.

It's like in a math exam where you have the result, but you still have to come up with the justification of how you got that result. But you simply can't because you don't understand the basics of it.
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Inverted objects are traveling backward through time. What's so difficult?

I'm only kidding.

Time travel films are ALREADY difficult when they employ the gimmick of effect occurring before the cause. Difficulty worsens when you add inverted physics to it, then worse still when you add that -- despite inverted physics and inverted entropy -- inverted characters still "move (themselves and the plot) forward."
  • That is: no matter whom or what is inverted or un-inverted, the net effect of each event remains the same.
  • We know this as a deterministic philosophy, and the film repeats this:
    • What happens is what has always happened and thus will always be what happensededs.
    • People confuse themselves with ideas of free will, but let's not get into that for the sake of this film, where everything is, yes, scripted.
 
Well they put this on HBO max so I watched it.

I read a lot of bad reviews so I wasn't really expecting much.. expected a confusing movie about time travel and, well.. yeah I got it lol.

Thats not to say it was terrible though, I actually enjoyed it. Seems like he was trying really hard to make an epic movie and it misses the mark a bit.. the whole movie is really faced paced.. I didnt really like the scenes where everything is going in forward and reverse it just sort of makes your head spin and it wasn't even visually all that fun to watch.. but the actors are all great and for whatever reason I did enjoy the movie. Lower your expectations and watch it with subtitles, it's ok.

6.5/10
 
This is a weird movie. Saw in theaters as it was first big movie back . Liked it afterwards but as time goes an I think about it..... liking less an less. Actually one of the worst Nolan movies . Didn't make much sense. Maybe the sequel will make it more clear.
 
TENET was the only movie i saw in the cinema last year. I haven't seen any this year either
 
There was no real emotional anything underneath the gimmick despite what the dramatic music would have you believe

As hard as I tried, I don’t care about some rich gold digging bitch regretting her terrible life decisions
 
Oeshon said:
TENET was the only movie i saw in the cinema last year. I haven't seen any this year either
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I saw that Russel Crowe movie unhinged last year, nobody was in the theatre and the movie sucked but I got a handjob so that was cool.

After watching Tenet and reflecfting on it I guess the movie did make me think a bit more. I watched a few ending explained movies on it, maybe it was a bit better than I originally thought? I dunno, movies shouldn't be that damn complicated lol. i'll raise my review to a 7 just because it made me think about it. And the viewing was enjoyable. I recommend it
 
I wanted to like it more than I did. Pacing felt off; felt like a poor mans inception.
 
Highly OVERRATED film. It tries to give an illusion of depth by attempting to confuse which it succeeds during the movie, but the more you think about it and try to rationalise it, the more the entire premise of the movie falls apart.

It's been a while since I've seen it, but this is what I can remember of it.
  1. There is NO FREE WILL, unlike what the scientist wants you to think at the start. I recall Neil says something along the likes of "what's happened, happened", which pretty much sums it all up.
  2. Sator's wife seeing the woman jumping off the boat; Michael Caine's character talking about the big explosion; protagonist and Neil fighting themselves pretty much drills in the fact that everything's set in stone. The fact that the entire movie starts pretty much AFTER the big Siberian explosion means Sator has already failed, and will fail again regardless of what anyone does.
  3. Both future protagonist and whoever told Sator of the algorithms would've known that nothing they do can change their present. There's no grandfather's paradox. Whoever invented the turnstile could've very easily attempted to verify if the paradox exist. And once they found out it didn't, then what's the point of trying to contact Sator from the past? The only viable explanation is because it's predetermined that they have to as it's an endless loop that keeps on repeating itself.
  4. Neil's obviously personally met future protagonist who sent him on this mission. Assuming Neil's age is the same as the actor playing him, that'd make him... 34? What's the youngest Neil a future protagonist can recruit? A 20 year old? And considering anyone going in reverse back in time is still aging normally, that'd mean that whole future she-bang happened only... 14 years from now. Meh.
  5. Reverse Neil saves protagonist in the opera house with a reverse bullet, then proceeds to run away in a non-reverse manner. Makes no sense.
  6. Fighting makes even less sense. If a reverse explosion turns things cold, a reverse punch should also just be a soft caress because the momentum is reversed.
Overall, I'd say Tenet's an over ambitious, needlessly confusing and overall nonsensical film. Pretty much trademark Nolan. Action's good though.
 
Finally saw it on HBO Max

First time through it looked great but really lagged at times.

but by the end I was intrigued & I have already rewatched it & enjoyed it more the 2nd time

a lot depends on how much you like puzzle box movies.

Inception did a great job combining a fun heist movie with a high end concept. Tenet struggled to be a great stand alone action / spy movie but the concept part is really really cool

I’m buying stock in The protagonist as a leading man. He was fun in Ballers. Lots of charisma. I’m all in to watch whatever he does next
 
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