Christopher Nolan's latest mind-bending sci-fi epic is one that will likely get discussed and debated amongst the film community and Nolan loyal for years to come, and Tenet is a movie that has proved as confusing as it is impressive and perhaps as divisive as it is entertaining. It is undoubtedly a movie that inspires thought and conversation and will leave a slew of confused individuals in its wake.
It is also a movie that has already and will continue to inspire a variety of memes; whether they are taking jabs at the confusing plot or the way in which it gets made, the movie is a prime target for hardcore fans of both it and Nolan himself.
Tenet = 4x Inception
Nolan has an obsession with time. Particularly in how it relates to perception and structure. The way in which audiences perceive the events of a film and how the structure of a movie can get altered and manipulated with the use of time.
The two films that arguably do this to the highest quality in Nolan's filmography are Memento and Inception, with Tenet having a lot of similarities to the latter. However, while Inception was hard to follow for many, Tenet is incredibly more so, leveling up at least four times from Inception in terms of thought provocation, Nolan's obsession, the manipulation of time, and the general confusion.
Practical Effects
Christopher Nolan may be the living filmmaker who cares the most about the cinematic experience and crafting films that are perfect for the big screen; Tenet is the pinnacle of this. Practical effects are a crucial aspect of the Nolan experience.
Tenet has less green screen than your average romantic comedy, and perhaps the moment that show's the movie's dedication to this most, and its commitment to the spectacle, also is the plane crash scene. Nolan literally crashed a real plane, how insane is that?
D'oh
There is something about Tenet that is truly wild. Despite how deliberately distant the movie is, how little emotional payoff there is, and how incredibly hard to understand it is at points during the first viewing, you cannot help to be awestruck at points.
The entire final act is unbelievable. Some people will not appreciate the lack of an emotional core. Still, if you get over that issue, you will be like Homer above, you will think "brilliant," but the chances of you understanding what is going on is minimal.
Academy Training
Tenet does feel like the peak of what Christopher Nolan has attempted to do over the past decade as it relates to time, with Inception kicking off the time trend of the 2010s, which dominated four of Nolan's five movies of these ten years.
It is a movie that is far better than Interstellar, and far more time related than Dunkirk, and given the heist/espionage aspect, it does feel like a prelude to Tenet. However, despite the similarities between them, analyzing and observing how Inception is made and flows with the narrative beats will not help anyone understand the movie.
"Don't Try To Understand It."
Sticking with the idea of Tenet being pretty difficult to comprehend, while Inception cannot prepare or help you understand the film, more extreme measures can get taken to do so.
While the meme seems to be going a little overboard, it is how you feel after one viewing. Tenet needs multiple viewings to appreciate the detail and craftsmanship truly, as well as to gain even close to a 100% comprehension of the film.
2020 Strikes Again
Going back to the Inception well one more time, comparisons will get drawn between the two, likely until Nolan's next project comes to fruition, and the anticipation makes people forget about both these films.
In all honesty, Inception is not difficult to understand despite the original and complex concept, and Tenet makes it look like a simple linear, three-act structure, safe play of a movie.
Premature Killing
As can be expected of most Nolan movies, there is a dysfunctional relationship between a man and a wife in which Kat suffers quite a bit at the hands of her husband, and the movie's central antagonist, Andrei Sator.
At the climax of the film, Kat must keep Sator alive long enough for the Protagonist, Neil, and Ives to extract the algorithm, but kills him before she gets the signal out of hate. Very, very luckily, the heroes had removed it in time.
Classic Sound Mixing
Ever since The Dark Knight Rises, Christopher Nolan has been doing this strange, yet deliberate thing with the sound mixing of his films where the dialogue gets put to the bottom of the track underneath the sound effects and score.
It is the most troublesome in this movie, where audiences will be fortunate not to miss some crucial dialogue due to the sensory overload of the score and sounds.
Made For The Big Screen
As got mentioned earlier, Nolan makes his films for the cinema screen, with IMAX cameras, practical effects, and unreal spectacle. The delays Tenet underwent proves his dedication to the theatre.
Nolan is unlikely to kill people for watching movies on a laptop or phone screen, but anyone who does do these things will likely be looked down upon by the auteur, and they will not get the experience of any film, nevermind of Tenet.
That Ending
Up last, we have the crossover event of the century, Christopher Nolan mixed with perhaps the most memed set of movies on the planet, the Star Wars prequels.
The ending of Tenet with the temporal pincer movement, the race for the algorithm, the Neil reveals, the Protagonist reveal, and the sheer exhilaration of the action is all pretty spectacular but can get confusing and painful to the mind when you think about the loops and about how the Protagonist created all of it with the Tenet organization.