Tenet User Reviews/Reactions [Possible SPOILERS]

Christopher Nolan's time inverting spy film that follows a protagonist fighting for the survival of the entire world.
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Drewton wrote:
September 7th, 2020, 4:06 am
Alright, I love Christopher Nolan still, but I‘m going to talk about the main reason, for me, why the story of Tenet fundamentally doesn’t work for me.

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Again, compare this to All of Nolan’s other films. The Prestige almost immediately makes us sympathize with its protagonist when his wife tragically dies during a magic trick because of an accident by Bale’s character. Inception gives us a similar opening prologue to Tenet with the protagonist living his “day to day life” doing his job, but this prologue and the scene that follow generate empathy for him as we learn that he can’t go home and be with his kids, which is what he wants the most. We see his memory of his kids. “When are you coming home, dad?” In the same scene, we also learn that he’s feeling pain over the death of his wife (“Mommy’s not here anymore”) and that he has self doubt in his grasp of reality, pointing a gun to his head while watching the totem spin.

And there’s a good amount of clunkiness to the plotting, but I think I should review the film some more to talk about that. Inception really was a masterwork in storytelling and this movie sadly failed in so many fundamental ways that Inception succeeded in.
Some would they it is a masterwork in storytelling and others would say it's a cheap emotional manipulation of the audiences. Missing the dead wife and reuniting with children is very simple and overused. This time Nolan choose to dispense these ideas that you have seen in other movies 1000 times before. Instead the Protagonist is a bit like Mad Max. He stumbles across the lifes of other people (and their dreams and hopes and failures and inner conflicts). The emotional core is build by the supporting characters. In this case by Kat (Debicki). I would say thats a fresh change in Nolans Filmography.

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X-MementoMori-X wrote:
September 7th, 2020, 4:35 am
Drewton wrote:
September 7th, 2020, 4:06 am
Alright, I love Christopher Nolan still, but I‘m going to talk about the main reason, for me, why the story of Tenet fundamentally doesn’t work for me.

Image


Again, compare this to All of Nolan’s other films. The Prestige almost immediately makes us sympathize with its protagonist when his wife tragically dies during a magic trick because of an accident by Bale’s character. Inception gives us a similar opening prologue to Tenet with the protagonist living his “day to day life” doing his job, but this prologue and the scene that follow generate empathy for him as we learn that he can’t go home and be with his kids, which is what he wants the most. We see his memory of his kids. “When are you coming home, dad?” In the same scene, we also learn that he’s feeling pain over the death of his wife (“Mommy’s not here anymore”) and that he has self doubt in his grasp of reality, pointing a gun to his head while watching the totem spin.

And there’s a good amount of clunkiness to the plotting, but I think I should review the film some more to talk about that. Inception really was a masterwork in storytelling and this movie sadly failed in so many fundamental ways that Inception succeeded in.
Some would they it is a masterwork in storytelling and others would say it's a cheap emotional manipulation of the audiences. Missing the dead wife and reuniting with children is very simple and overused. This time Nolan choose to dispense these ideas that you have seen in other movies 1000 times before. Instead the Protagonist is a bit like Mad Max. He stumbles across the lifes of other people (and their dreams and hopes and failures and inner conflicts). The emotional core is build by the supporting characters. In this case by Kat (Debicki). I would say thats a fresh change in Nolans Filmography.
Obviously the Protagonist is underdeveloped by design. I think we can all agree with this. He's a blank slate. The question for me is why?

Your Mad Max comparison is both accurate and not. He does stumble across the lives of other people and the plot revolves around the secondary characters (in Tenet it is Kat and potentially Neil), however Mad Max also has an arc in all his films. Everytime he starts reluctant and ends up believing and fighting for the cause.

The Protagonist does not seem to have one. There is a reference to him being all about the mission early on but then again,
he values Kat's life more and keeps her alive
but there's really no insight into why within the movie. He just follows the events of the movie and sometimes does things out of character.

I would argue that this in fact makes him the weakest protagonist in a Nolan film, but the secondary characters are more interesting by comparison and that does mostly work (mostly because not that Nolan didn't have great secondary characters before).

I'm also wondering what the justification is for the character to be named The Protagonist? Is it just because of the blank slate or is there any deeper meta contextual meaning at play here? Maybe it's that time just like a movie needs to be simply experienced by someone to truly exist? Or maybe I'm just looking for answers where there aren't any :P

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Does somebody think 'The Protagonist' is supposed to be like a codename from the organisation?

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Jumanji the next level has 72% on rotten tomatoes and it is not certified fresh. How is that possible because it is above 70%

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hamid1993ss wrote:
September 7th, 2020, 8:38 am
Jumanji the next level has 72% on rotten tomatoes and it is not certified fresh. How is that possible because it is above 70%
They have changed it to 75%. That's why Tenet is not certified fresh currently, being at 74%.

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Interstellar has 72... and is fresh.

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LeoCobb wrote:
September 7th, 2020, 10:17 am
Interstellar has 72... and is fresh.
Maybe movies before that certified fresh criterion changed are grandfathered in, or hit parameters that we can't see (that may include having an average rating above 7.00 or something).

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Disappointing experience. Will rank at the bottom out of his films for me. The entire film was one big action set piece with no story, character development. Too loud, head ache inducing, cacophonous and a complete mess. Like others, had a hard time hearing the dialogues that were drowned in overpowering background score. Wish Nolan does something less hectic and a movie with a good story like his previous ones. No comparison to how classy Prestige was which too had twists/mystery as it’s central element but with an evolving story, characters. Tenet is like a first person shooter game :/

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I caught it a second time. I posted this elsewhere to be super spoiler-free, so this won't mean as much to people who have seen the movie.

First off, I had a week to absorb the story and elements, and I got to piece more things together off-screen so that this time I was prepared for it on-screen. This time through, I didn't have a headache watching it, which honestly I kind of missed. I liked that the first time through it was making my brain struggle really hard in coping with what I was watching and yet take it all in at the same time.

This time I got to relish in it, yet somehow I wanted it to perplex me again in the same way. It still definitely did, but no headache this time around haha. I think I understand about 95% of what the movie offers as well, whereas the first time I understood like 40% of it. I also got to take in things like the soundtrack, which simply oozed. It is very good, and heightens the on-screen stuff almost more than it deserves.

I'll say this for those who haven't watched it yet. Number one, this movie needs to be watched twice to be properly assessed. Number two, there is a line early on in this movie that is speaking as much to the audience as it is to another character. When watching this movie for the first time: "Don't try to understand it. Feel it." Just let it happen and whoosh over you, it's okay!

Anyway, I still want to be dodgy with the story and elements so I'm really not saying much even still. As far as placement goes, it doesn't top my list of Nolan films as far as liking it, but I think it's an ambitious and technical achievement that it was just done too well to pass it up on those merits.

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Fourth viewing done! And it’s better every time. Every time I watch it the better I think RP is in the film, as is the whole cast.

On a side, Saw the Dune trailer also, meh, hopefully the film is better than the trailer indicates.

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