Tenet (Christopher Nolan) *spoilers from post 475*

Dav010

Just watched it, what an absolute mess.

ronano

I know the dialogue and sound choices are intentionally but honestly it's irritating as hell.

bewareofthedog

Not a patch on Inception, the concept just didn't flow and make any sort of sense to me at all.

If the "average person" will get the concepts then why are many movie critics calling it a jangled unstructured mess?

The phrase "What's happened, happened" grated me too.

Pretty sure it's a movie I'll never watch again, was bored half way through.

fritzelly

Watched last night and along with trying to follow the intricate story having to concentrate on what people are even saying in the first place place makes it a slog of a film - the first 10/15 minutes I had no idea what people were saying it was so muffled (like the third Batman film) and that trend continued thru a lot of the film

I don't think I'm up for a second viewing unless I turn subtitles on

NIMAN

ronano wrote: »

I know the dialogue and sound choices are intentionally but honestly it's irritating as hell.

Haven't watched it yet, but read this so much that I'm wary of it.

Why would such a huge blockbuster be recorded with such poor sound?

fritzelly

NIMAN wrote: »

Haven't watched it yet, but read this so much that I'm wary of it.

Why would such a huge blockbuster be recorded with such poor sound?

The start of the film they are all wearing respirators - near impossible to understand what is being said, there's another scene on boats where pretty much all you can hear is the boats thrashing thru the waves and then in general the whole film just has sound drowned out by the score or sound effects

It's annoying as hell

Dav010

fritzelly wrote: »

The start of the film they are all wearing respirators - near impossible to understand what is being said, there's another scene on boats where pretty much all you can hear is the boats thrashing thru the waves and then in general the whole film just has sound drowned out by the score or sound effects

It's annoying as hell

I thought it might be my hearing, I have a top sound system but still couldn’t make out what was being said in quite a few scenes, but especially the two you mention.

rtron

I'm going to try and watch it again but using this walk through:
www.vulture.com/amp/2020/09/tenet-explained-whats-going-on-in-the-plot-of-this-movie.html

I saw it in the cinema but did enjoy the first hour or so at the time so decided to at least re-watch that

only got to the lunch with Michael Caine though - the whole elongated exposition is nauseating the second time around.

possibly an even worse film than I first thought

Frustrating movie.
If they got rid of inversion and just had Washington playing an agent, Pattison as his morally ambiguous sidekick, Branagh chewing scenery playing the same baddie and the poisonous relationship with Debicki I know Nolan could have realised a compelling story hitting every beat. I wouldn't care if others would accuse it of being derivative or unadenturous. As the closing titles rolled I'd be satisfied.
This was too clever by half for its own good.

expectationlost

bought the bluray but watched it last night, think its good its just a bit of head scratcher at the very end about their past adventures

bewareofthedog

The biggest problem I found is that there didn't seem to be any rules, they sort of just muddled a bunch of variables together trying to explain inversion, all it did for me was completely throw me off the time travel element and I was left scratching my head at the ambiguity of it all. When the protagonist first got inverted the female soldier joked things like food tasted the opposite and the grip of the car would be different etc. If the taste of an inanimate object like food is inverted then why for e.g. is the weight resistance of roads totally unaffected. Why is it only certain things?

Inception was a complex movie but there were rules and everything made sense more or less to me on first viewing, tenet is like two average sci-fi movies intertwined and it never properly nails the inversion element, not even close. There's a bunch of other problems with it outside of plot, the sound mixing like others have said is substandard, and I feel like the casting was poor besides Robert Pattinson. Despite my previous post I will end up watching it again to try and make sense of things, but I have the feeling I'll get bored scratching my head half way through again.

flasher0030

bewareofthedog wrote: »

The biggest problem I found is that there didn't seem to be any rules, they sort of just muddled a bunch of variables together trying to explain inversion, all it did for me was completely throw me off the time travel element and I was left scratching my head at the ambiguity of it all. When the protagonist first got inverted the female soldier joked things like food tasted the opposite and the grip of the car would be different etc. If the taste of an inanimate object like food is inverted then why for e.g. is the weight resistance of roads totally unaffected. Why is it only certain things?

Inception was a complex movie but there were rules and everything made sense more or less to me on first viewing, tenet is like two average sci-fi movies intertwined and it never properly nails the inversion element, not even close. There's a bunch of other problems with it outside of plot, the sound mixing like others have said is substandard, and I feel like the casting was poor besides Robert Pattinson. Despite my previous post I will end up watching it again to try and make sense of things, but I have the feeling I'll get bored scratching my head half way through again.

Why do you feel you need to make sense of everything. It's a work of fiction; a science fiction tale featuring going time travel elements, inversion etc. It doesn't need to be compared to the real world that we live in today - to determine what elements of the film could be credible and what elements may not be. If the producer/writer/director etc decide to put any plotline into a movie, that's their perogitive. Like I say, it's a sci-fi movie; anything goes. You can make a judgement on whether or not you liked the film and thought it was good or not. But it's stretching it a bit to be judgeing what is credible for you in a sci-fi film.

serfboard

bewareofthedog wrote: »

The biggest problem I found is that there didn't seem to be any rules, they sort of just muddled a bunch of variables together trying to explain inversion, all it did for me was completely throw me off the time travel element and I was left scratching my head at the ambiguity of it all. When the protagonist first got inverted the female soldier joked things like food tasted the opposite and the grip of the car would be different etc. If the taste of an inanimate object like food is inverted then why for e.g. is the weight resistance of roads totally unaffected. Why is it only certain things?

Because they wouldn't have been able to build a plot otherwise.

bewareofthedog wrote: »

Inception was a complex movie but there were rules and everything made sense more or less to me on first viewing, tenet is like two average sci-fi movies intertwined and it never properly nails the inversion element, not even close.

I agree with you. The rules of the alternate world were inconsistent because, having come up with this great plot device, they couldn't make it stick for plot points, so they just broke the rules they had created when it suited - which begs the question, why create the world at all?

I think Nolan should have spent some time on this site: https://worldbuilding.stackexchange.com. The site describes itself as:

a question and answer site for writers/artists using science, geography and culture to construct imaginary worlds and settings.

There are some very interesting discussions on there, where writers propose worlds and scienfiticky types point out any inconsistencies.

Dav010

flasher0030 wrote: »

Why do you feel you need to make sense of everything. It's a work of fiction; a science fiction tale featuring going time travel elements, inversion etc. It doesn't need to be compared to the real world that we live in today - to determine what elements of the film could be credible and what elements may not be. If the producer/writer/director etc decide to put any plotline into a movie, that's their perogitive. Like I say, it's a sci-fi movie; anything goes. You can make a judgement on whether or not you liked the film and thought it was good or not. But it's stretching it a bit to be judgeing what is credible for you in a sci-fi film.

It helps if the plot is coherent though.

bewareofthedog

flasher0030 wrote: »

Why do you feel you need to make sense of everything. It's a work of fiction; a science fiction tale featuring going time travel elements, inversion etc. It doesn't need to be compared to the real world that we live in today - to determine what elements of the film could be credible and what elements may not be. If the producer/writer/director etc decide to put any plotline into a movie, that's their perogitive. Like I say, it's a sci-fi movie; anything goes. You can make a judgement on whether or not you liked the film and thought it was good or not. But it's stretching it a bit to be judgeing what is credible for you in a sci-fi film.

It doesn't need to be credible, it needs to be somewhat consistent and make sense to a certain degree in the world they created. I'm not talking about nitpicks either just a somewhat coherant plot that keeps the movie gelled together.

Point completely went over you head, you make it sound like I dislike the movie because it's scifi and far fetched which is silly.

Giruilla

Painfully dull on rewatch. You realise quickly the entire film is essentially exposition, and JD Washington is not a strong lead.

Homelander

To its credit I do think it's a film that lends itself to the intrigue and puzzlement of the unfolding plot if you're following it.

It's not perfect, but I thought it was a very solid and original film, having watched the German show "Dark" very recently I think I was very much primed for it subconsciously as it deals with very similar themes about time.

I think if anything it was too ambitious for a major blockbuster release with a limited runtime, would've been more suited to a TV show.

sky88

Huge Nolan fan but this was by far his dullest film

Did people feel Neil was Elizabeth debeckis kid grown up

Snake Plisken

sky88 wrote: »

Huge Nolan fan but this was by far his dullest film

Really? I thought Tenet was a return to form after Dunkirk which I found full.

sky88

Snake Plisken wrote: »

Really? I thought Tenet was a return to form after Dunkirk which I found full.

I found myself watching it really wanting to like it but it was a losing battle for me just didn’t do anything for me

Snake Plisken

sky88 wrote: »

I found myself watching it really wanting to like it but it was a losing battle for me just didn’t do anything for me

Did you see it in the Cinema or just on TV? I took the chance and saw it on the big screen and really enjoyed it and look forward to watching it again. I do think Nolan's movies work better on the big screen.

sky88

Snake Plisken wrote: »

Did you see it in the Cinema or just on TV? I took the chance and saw it on the big screen and really enjoyed it and look forward to watching it again. I do think Nolan's movies work better on the big screen.

Tv and I have to say a lot of the sound issues people talked about I didn’t really see except small parts

To me the story was trying to be overly smart but came off confusing instead and the set pieces for the movie just didn’t click

homerun_homer

sky88 wrote: »

Huge Nolan fan but this was by far his dullest film

Did people feel Neil was Elizabeth debeckis kid grown up

This theory has been doing the rounds a long time and is a bit of a stupid one when you think of it. It would mean the kid would be living most of his life going backwards to get to this point in time where he'd be this age moving forward.

Outkast_IRE

Watched this over the weekend on a big screen with a good sound system.

Was disappointed. The production values are excellent but i thought the reverse time premise actually dispelled any tension in the scenes.

The concept is good and really interesting i just dont know how well it worked as a big action film. No tension, very little reason to care for the characters etc.

Keyzer

Watched it last week and I'm still scratching my head.

I'm a Nolan fan, love Inception and his other work but this just seemed to me to be a convoluted mess from start to finish. Like that person in work who has notions about themselves, the person who uses elaborate words no one usually uses, just to look smart. But when you scratch the surface, they aren't smart at all and they really don't know what they are talking about. That summed this movie up for me.

The whole inversion concept was, in my opinion, ridiculous. It made very little sense as a "time travel" concept.

Cinematography was great (as usual with Nolan), sound dreadful, set pieces very good.

Just a bad movie in my opinion, one I wont revisit.

On a side note, I didn't think JDW was a strong lead.

pixelburp

To the point of the audio; we watched it via a soundbar so while hardly top-tier acoustics, it has been more than capable of giving movies a proper shakedown with their audio mix. Most films watched have had good, cinematic soundscapes. Hearing or comprehension of dialogue never an issue; this isn't even the first time the issue has presented in a Nolan film. So honestly, IMO there's something going on with the post-production decisions. And at this point, I would speculate that Nolan is being indulged way too much that "lesser" directors would be pulled up on something as basic as the audio mix.

To the actual film itself? Arguably Nolan's first proper misstep. And same point as from the prior line: I think there was a touch of indulgence in what was on-screen; as if Nolan had finally graduated to the point where typical production oversight no longer applied. This was baggy and muddled in its execution, with only the now typical, exhilarating set-pieces acting as relief between the tedious exposition. Said exposition has been another issue with Nolan's more "gimmick" driven films, the dialogue often begging another pass from someone more capable of expressing the concepts presented; and while Inception's "dream within a dream" structure was relatively simple to express, here the convoluted premise became too much for the leaden dialogue to carry. The concept didn't even feel particularly complicated either, but the execution constantly left me upended, confused if I had grasped the principle.

I think Nolan is beginning to lose himself in the technicality of his various conceits at this stage: he obviously has a resting interest in "time" as a core narrative pillar; it's present in almost every movie, either structurally in the script, or the story itself. Yet to compare Tenet with an earlier work like The Prestige, the older film comes across the more mature, better-formed feature. The conceit of a magic trick writ large across a movie's narrative, but never derailing the experience or story.

mikhail

I don't disagree. The Prestige had the benefit of a source novel, and Jonathan Nolan's input to the scripts they wrote together seems to be more conspicuous by its absence every film. I don't think he could make a movie like The Prestige now though. The studio demands a big tentpole actioner, and a story like that just won't cut it. I think he just needs a new writing partner.

Snake Plisken

mikhail wrote: »

I don't disagree. The Prestige had the benefit of a source novel, and Jonathan Nolan's input to the scripts they wrote together seems to be more conspicuous by its absence every film. I don't think he could make a movie like The Prestige now though. The studio demands a big tentpole actioner, and a story like that just won't cut it. I think he just needs a new writing partner.

Well I think they indulged Nolan on The Prestige and Inception as he was pulling in the box office with The Batman trilogy, I do think Warner see him as this generations Kubrick and will allow him to make whatever he so pleases (within reason). Still think Tenet would have made money in normal circumstances

B.A._Baracus

I was talking about this with a person I work with and he made an interesting comment regarding the sound. Like we all know Nolan likes to make movies for the cinema. The art and awe of a big screen.

But is Nolan just mixing for some big cinema surround sound system and everything else is meh? Like "what ever will do" when it comes to blu ray or streaming?

I dunno. Just throwing that out there.