Nolan’s films occupy a unique space in pop culture. Dimple Kapadia makes an … Although I did see the poster and ran across a comment recently that speculated it might be a sequel to Inception. Cinematography : someone below mentioned that this had a mission impossible feel where the locations dictated the storyline and i agree with this. I can't recall watching a film like this and throwing my hands up in the air. That was basically my takeaway from the movie. This is probably his worst for sound mixing. "Tenet" is big and ambitious, but Nolan is more caught up in his own machinations than ever before. Tenet Review. In a world where blockbuster cinema is dominated by franchises and sequels, it serves as an accomplished demonstration of the pleasures of unconnected and non-serialised original storytelling. But it’s hard to escape the sense that less might have been more. But in a story that, like most Nolan movies, is ostensibly grounded in reality (something that was one of the defining aspects of his Batman movies for instance), it just doesn't come across as plausible. Or a car might find itself flipped on a road before it's flipped. But after I’ve seen it four or five more times, maybe I’ll change my mind. It's been funny to watch people come to this realization. Right now, as it belatedly crashes a dormant global release calendar, it seems something of a time inversion in itself. Yes, after months of impossible impossibilities that … But cinemas will often play the film at 4 (around 75 decibels). CRISTOPHER NOLAN?? There are undoubtedly more recurring motifs, but these are the main ones I noticed. I just got out of an advance screen in Sydney and I agree. The intent of this review is not to encourage or discourage anyone from attending a theatrical screening at this specific time. Tenet will get people to the theatre, but it’s a bittersweet taste of cinema for the first time back. In other words, say what you will about the tenets of Tenet, at least it has an ethos. Tenet review: Christopher Nolan's thriller is a palindromic dud. Meanwhile, I'll post some short reviews on the movie. That, by the way, isn't a criticism - after all there are very few original ideas left, and those sequences themselves worked pretty well. Last modified on Fri 4 Sep 2020 14.49 BST. I found it very hard to follow what was going on. Easily my favorite film from him because I always found his stuff lacking a soul. TheAbsolution. Final Trailer Full spoilers via Reddit and Pastebin: ... to see this (including me) in the next few weeks is made to sign an NDA and can fined and/or put in jail for spoiling Tenet . Price suspects the director wants to make the audience work harder to understand the dialogue; he thinks Nolan believes this will make the film a more immersive, engaging experience. Sound effects and music tracks exist on faders that can slide up and down. Listen to Apocalypse Now – you hear everything.” Price agrees: “If you watch old movies, you might hear some sound effects here and there but now they go nuts: somebody’s walking across the room in a leather jacket, you hear the zippers clink and the creak of the leather and every footstep is right in your face.”, When television became commonplace in the mid-20th century and challenged cinema’s dominion, cinema needed to distinguish itself; it needed to prove that it could justify people leaving the comfort of their homes. I just finished watching it in Dubai and had the exact same issues with the sound and the dialogues. Italy looked gorgeous and a place i wanted to return to due to this. Everyone is fine or better. Tenet review: Christopher Nolan's thriller is a palindromic dud, Rain is sizzling bacon, cars are lions roaring: the art of sound in movies | Jordan Kisner. Working with other editors, his job is to layer a film with multiple levels of sound. I can’t even explain it. Mumblecore … Robert Pattinson and John David Washington in Tenet. Don’t be. The depth, subtlety and wit of Pattinson and Debicki’s performances only becomes fully apparent once you know where Tenet is going, or perhaps that should be where it’s been. “When they take the sound we record on set and kind of undermix it, it feels like, ‘What did we try so hard for?’” he says. Facebook. We heard all the lines. As sound technology advances, why are films getting harder to hear? Given how hard Nolan’s blockbuster would be to understand even if all the dialogue was crystal-clear, it is curious that the director has made it doubly difficult to hear the story of a screenplay he supposedly spent five years writing. Nolan devotees will still get a kick out of Tenet’s cerebral ideas and no doubt forgive its overloaded climax, while the more casual cinemagoer will get plenty of bang for their buck amid its vast visuals (cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema drenches the Nordic location in cool slate greys, while one clifftop shot of the Amalfi Coast is utterly beguiling). It’s a real shame Tenet isn’t it. ), Is it actually a modern phenomenon? They're often one of the best parts of Nolan films. To complicate matters, there is a disparity between the environment in which the director hears the final mix of a film and the one in which it is screened. It’s a much-repeated claim that movie dialogue is becoming harder and harder to hear. Member. Here, we answer all your questions about Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, including what happened in the ending. I think Nolan is aware of this, cause he lampshades it by having a Doctor Exposition tell the main character (and us) that he (we) shouldn't try to make sense of it. But I wish he had used it to better tell either an emotional story or a more thematic one. ‘Listen to Apocalypse Now – you hear everything’. It’s very fire. It's a conceit that feels like one you could just maybe get away with in a Golden Age or Silver Age era comic book. “Mmghh nmmhhmmmm nghhh,” replies Washington. Read more. “The first thing I do is create a solid dialogue track, and then everything else has to come up to it and not exceed it,” he says. Tenet, which has been pushed several times by … Half the dialogue was unintelligible. Someone described Nolan films "people who give awkward hugs" and boy is it apt. Reddit. No one could possibly mistake “Tenet” as being by anyone but Christopher Nolan. There are timeline twists, back-stabs, and more than a few paradoxes. There are some nods at both in Tenet. I felt like Dunkirk was the same way but the nature of that film lends itself very well to Nolan's cold, detached style. Cool movie though but yeah that let it down for me. by Eric Ital 2 months ago Facebook. Tenet Review: John David Washington carries the weight of the film. It did so partly by becoming bigger and louder. Loved the concept, construction and execution. No other artform could quite present such a collision of time, place, idea and emotion, and it’s clear that Nolan’s pure intent is to give us the utmost of what this medium can uniquely provide. Time has run out. It's been almost a month since Tenet was released and all these weeks later, we're probably still no closer at understanding it all.. But I think Tenet ends up being too clever (or silly) for its own good. Like the films are made by scientists. There are two sequences that suffered most in this last regard. Marvellous. I think Nolan is fascinated with the time travel gimmick mainly for its own sake. Beatty realised that projectionists, not directors, have final say on a film. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts Tenet is the cinematic equivalent of a Rubik’s Cube, presented in towering Imax and featuring a polished cast set amidst some of the world’s most gorgeous locations. 0. I found the time bending made sense in Inception but in this movie it didn't. In an era – and a pandemic – in which home streaming dominates, cinema may be forced to pull out the stops once more. Elizabeth Debicki's character carries the emotional weight of the story, but it feels detached from the main idea. An earlier version incorrectly said the dynamic range of TVs was “more extreme” than in cinemas. Tenet ending spoilers follow.. Well, that and the suits. Imax expects about 90% of its global network of about 1,400 theaters to be back open by the end of August. The film’s dialogue has been criticised by reviewers and audience members for often being impossible to make out. Following two recent ambitious movies from the filmmaker, Tenet feels a little conservative, as if Nolan’s style is a franchise rather than a framework. But it isn’t just Nolan’s films. Armed with only one word, Tenet, and fighting for the survival of the entire world, a Protagonist journeys through a twilight world of international espionage on a mission that will unfold in something beyond real time. Or rather do be, and savour it. Our Tenet spoiler review digs into why the international spy thriller starring John David Washington and Robert Pattinson is Christopher Nolan's worst film. For me, it was "Inception." This is a film that will cause many to throw up their hands in bamboozlement – and many more, I hope, to clasp theirs in awe and delight. IM SHOCKED!! Markey says Warren Beatty watched a screening of Bonnie and Clyde when it came out and couldn’t understand why the sound of the bullets was so quiet. Also the sound mixing issues and the lack of clear dialogue has to be addressed, i don't know how you can nail great action, soundtrack (which this has) and keep missing this, extremely frustrated and only added more to my confusion. And, like Inception, which based the different characters' roles in the team on key film making roles, there is a metafictional aspect to Tenet. The first critic reviews for Tenet range from scathing to glowing, but they all agree it is very much a Christopher Nolan movie, for good and bad. Felt NOTHING at the end. Nolan clearly likes to play with his toys, and is fascinated with the concept of time, whether it be in a non-fantastical genre (Memento, Dunkirk) or science fiction (Inception, Interstellar). Scenes would be very loud and you could hardly hear any of the dialogue. I created a separate thread on this, but it was removed by the mods and I was told to post my thoughts in this thread instead, so here goes: I went into Tenet knowing nothing about it. Maybe it's possible that Christopher Nolan has been put on this earth just to provide an excessively interesting retirement for Michael Caine. Walked away confused and so did most of my group. I also want to know how the soundtrack is. Tenet (M, 151 mins) Directed by Christopher Nolan **½ . “I think we’re bombarded,” Paul Markey, a projectionist at the Irish Film Institute, says of modern films. His narrative structures are often complex, even convoluted, to illustrate his films' premise. Although many viewers claim that films are getting louder, Bochar says that the opposite is the problem: “All of us in the industry will tell you point-blank that generally every single cinema is playing it lower than it should be.” A studio’s reference level tends to be around 85 decibels, or 7 on the Dolby scale, he says. What is going on? вЂ�Tenet’ Review: Christopher Nolan’s Long-Anticipated Time Caper Is a Humorless Disappointment "Tenet" is big and ambitious, but Nolan is more caught up in … IMHO, his best film is "The Prestige", because that story perfectly fits his approach to film-making. There was even an introductory briefing to the big climax (in fact, laying out the plan before seeing it executed is a trope used multiple times in the film) which is supposed to explain everything about the mission, like the fact that there were two teams, one normal and one inverted. ... Facebook 0 Twitter Reddit Tumblr 0 Likes. Don’t worry, it’s happened to all of us. By. “It really isn’t a mystery. “Hngmmhmmh,” says Pattinson. Reddit LinkedIn ... Talk “Tenet” Warner Bros. View Gallery 20 Photos. 'Tenet' Review Thread Rotten Tomatoes : 78% (41 reviews) with 6.98 in average rating Critics Consensus: A visually dazzling puzzle for film lovers to unlock, Tenet serves up all the cerebral spectacle audiences expect from a Christopher Nolan production. Tenet is one of those movies that must've felt like a great idea in the writing process but really didn't come through on screen. Previous 'The Devil All The Time' Review. r/tenet: The biggest subreddit dedicated to Christopher Nolan's Tenet. He gives the most entertaining performance in Tenet, investing even hoary cliches like "If I can't have you, no one will" with intensity, and is probably the best thing about it. Reopened theaters finally have a major new movie to show in Christopher Nolan's 'Tenet,' a sci-fi thriller that looks great while confusing you. This article was amended on 4 September 2020. TLDR: It's a Christopher Nolan movie. But I think it is fair to consider it a companion piece to Inception. Warner Bros. You know I had to look up exactly what “jump the shark” means? There were other sequences where we revisit previous scenes from another perspective. And after five months stuck in front of the small screen, maybe being a little overwhelmed is no bad thing. Email. This review is not meant to encourage people to take risks, but since I am one of the first people in the world to actually be able to see a first run movie I thought it would be good to share my experience. Despite this, it remains more interesting than most other tentpole movies and acts as a beacon for the director’s strengths. It shares many traits with Inception and/or other Christopher Nolan films. By using our Services or clicking I agree, you agree to our use of cookies. As the above list might suggest, Tenet felt familiar. Rotten Tomatoes: 78% (41 reviews) with 6.98 in average rating. here is a wonderful exchange in Christopher Nolan’s latest film. Altogether, it makes for a chilly, cerebral film — easy to admire, especially since it's so rich in audacity and originality, but almost impossible to love, lacking as it is in a certain humanity. I've long thought that Branagh is at his best when he's playing bad guys, whether he's hamming it up shamelessly (Wild Wild West) or providing nuance, warmth and appeal to the most horrific of people (Conspiracy). Robert Pattinson plays second fiddle without letting himself be put in the shade. FlipBoard. I don’t think that was just your cinema. It's not. Tenet (2020) The "gimmick" in the story is expressed through the conceit of "inverted" objects, objects sent back in time and which - upon arrival - somehow run backwards in contravention to normal entropy. In a 2019 Reddit AMA, sound designer Richard King – who has worked with Nolan on seven films, including Tenet – said: “He wants to grab the audience by the lapels and pull them toward the screen, and not allow the watching of his films to be a passive experience.”, It’s hard to imagine that Nolan is unaware of the criticism. This is kinda what I imagined it'd be like, really cool and entertaining but ultimately just Nolan on steroids, probably has a really long third act too. Still confused? If the film is available in your area please follow local public health guidelines if you chose to see it in the theatre. There is a wonderful exchange in Christopher Nolan’s latest film, Tenet, between Robert Pattinson and John David Washington. And if you can, you need to see this visually stunning movie on a big screen. The site may not work properly if you don't, If you do not update your browser, we suggest you visit, Press J to jump to the feed. The world is more than ready for a fabulous blockbuster, especially one that happens to feature face masks and chat about going back in time to avoid catastrophe. As with other movies, the scores are set to change as time passes. There's not a lot to say about the acting. Debicki does as much as she can with what she's given, and Kenneth Branagh most easily rises above the material. Tenet is not an easy movie to understand. Christopher Nolan’s Tenet is a mysterious movie, one I can’t possibly explain, at least not without a dozen more viewings. In this case it involves the question of who is the protagonist (rather awkwardly actually put in those terms: "I'm the protagonist of this story" is an actual line in the film). The other was the climax, which quite frankly I thought was a mess. “Somebody wrote the words and actors are saying those lines, so there’s got to be some priority.” He doesn’t know any re-recording artist who would deliberately obscure a story point. 71 Share on Reddit; ... Blu-ray Video and Audio Review: Tenet looks flat out gorgeous in 4K, which shouldn’t be surprising when it comes to a Christopher Nolan blockbuster. Any of these review praise the soundtrack? The result is that as impressive as the craftsmanship and originality of Tenet is, other aspects of the movie prove to be frustrating. Still cant wait to see it however, first movie in the cinema for what seems like ages. It may echo the cleverness of Rian Johnson’s “Looper” and Shane Carruth’s “Primer” in its dizzying disregard for linear chronology, but the plotting is muddled rather than complex, with less to say about the flow of time than “Interstellar” or “Memento.” In the end, “Tenet” isn’t one of Nolan’s most satisfying films. Tenet is a cerebral experience and I left knowing I loved it but didn't totally understand everything. It's still a great movie and a true big-screen experience, but it does stop it reaching the heights of Nolan's best work. The sound drove me nuts. Nolan outsmarted himself on this one. Christopher Nolan’s latest blockbuster is already infamous for its barely audible exchanges. Armed with only one word, Tenet, and fighting for the survival of the entire world, a Protagonist journeys through a twilight world of international espionage on a mission that will unfold in something beyond real-time. You literally just have to watch it. For Bochar, the priority is dialogue. There were more than a few parts where I could not make out the dialogue. At its best this is a ride that manages to be viscerally thrilling while still being emotionally and intellectually engaging, all in ways that are truly, uniquely cinematic. As with most problems, every department assumes that another department is to blame. A sentence detailing how cinemas judge which Dolby level to use has also been clarified. Casting : Excellent as always , became a fan of Pattison in this one and Washington definitely carried himself as the main character. Mathew Price is a production sound mixer who has worked on The Sopranos and The Marvellous Mrs Maisel. These were better handled, but the idea is one we've seen before and so didn't come as a particular surprise (even the movie's title serves as foreshadowing), whether in science fiction short stories (eg Heinlein's "All You Zombies", later adapted as the movie Predestination), comic books (Alan Moore's Chronocops) or other movies (eg Back to the Future). Twitter. Just hundreds of men running, yelling, shooting at things (not exactly what) and blowing things up (or whatever the opposite is of blowing things up in time-reversed action), while there was a "B" line following two characters, and a "C" line following two more. Because the device I think is essentially only there to allow Nolan to put an unusual spin the big action sequences. “Tenet” is no holy grail, but for all its stern, solemn posing, it’s dizzy, expensive, bang-up entertainment of both the old and new school. I think it's funny because it seems like some reviewers are just over it. Though it’s sometimes hamstrung by clumsy dialogue – a necessary evil, perhaps, given how much Nolan needs to explain – Tenet is rarely less than thrilling to watch. Soundtrack/Sound mixing : like i said outside of the issues with dialogue in parts to this movie which did hurt it my god the rest was fantastic, opening scene in particular was pulse racing. As he adds layers he has to make sure he can still hear the words. Thanks to the rewind feature and internet access, the movie is … “The more expensive movies have got, the more of a bombardment they become on your senses.”. This has been corrected. Either the emotional throughline or the more conceptual metafictional question could have been better integrated into the story, but both are lost in the storm und drang of Nolan's action sequences and narrative complexity. The upside to not going to such a screening is that I’m not bound by any embargo; I’m free to scour stray Reddit posts in order to piece together a semblance of Tenet’s plot and climax. So a bullet might leave a hole in a glass before it's fired. But while it does tread new ground, Tenet is the ‘safest’ film from Christopher Nolan in some years. Christopher Nolan directed a technically impressive, emotionally cold movie? All in all, Tenet delivers a mix of outstanding performances and unforgettable inverted sequences in another masterpiece of film making that will leave you on the edge of your seat. “Think about it: the first few Star Wars [films], we heard them all. вЂ�TENET’ Review: Christopher Nolan Finally Jumps The Shark In Arguably His Worst Movie Yet #Tenet. This is how much of Tenet sounded to viewers in cinemas. (In cinemas the dynamic range – the range between the loudest and quietest sounds – is wider than on home TV screens, and, although the sound is compressed in the transition to TV, the range can still be so wide that you are forced to turn up the volume for dialogue, then down again for action. It’s a challenging, ambitious and genuinely original film packed with compelling performances – Washington and Debicki are especially excellent – which confirms Nolan as the master of the cerebral blockbuster. I'd avoided the trailers (not intentionally, just haven't been to the cinema in the last few months, don't watch TV with ads, and don't generally seek trailers out online), and wasn't even sure what genre it was. Which makes it fascinating when a movie like Tenet comes along, because Tenet is a complete misfire. In a time when cinema is struggling through arguably its most difficult time in its entire history, Tenet works as a fantastic reminder of what blockbuster filmmaking can aspire to be, and why it’s best experienced in a huge, dark room. We know how to do it.” This means that Nolan’s use of noisier Imax cameras in Tenet would not explain the problem, as some have suggested. Random thoughts: the opening sequence seems inspired by the 2002 Moscow terrorist hostage crisis, and one of the characters' homes, an Indian billionaire, seems clearly modelled on this real-life home of an actual Indian billionaire. WhatsApp. News & Discussion about Major Motion Pictures, Looks like you're using new Reddit on an old browser. And there are many action sequences, most of them heists of some sort, all delivered in typical Nolan style: technically assured, eschewing visual effects in favour of practical effects when possible (there's one involving a Boeing 747 and I'm willing to bet that Nolan used a real plane instead of CGI), but also sometimes confusing. Press J to jump to the feed. Tenet review: Christopher Nolan's thriller is a palindromic dud. Markey says that they could, for example, raise the volume of the dialogue specifically, but they never do – it would mean having to readjust it for every film. Oct 25, 2017 5,290 Atlanta, GA. Aug 18, 2020 #37 ... review … Linkedin. Don't be surprised if a conspiracy theory-minded Nolan fan goes on Reddit, claiming to have found the answers to Inception's ending and if life itself is just a dream on watching Tenet in reverse. Which is advice I eventually took to heart. But ultimately, this sequence just failed to cohere for me, and I watched with detached interest at best, and boredom at worst. Cookies help us deliver our Services. So much weight has been placed on Christopher Nolan's newest film Tenet that it almost isn't fair. In my cinema the sound mixing was off. Once again seizing control of the medium, Nolan attempts to alter the fabric of reality, or at least blow the roof off the multiplexes. Sound engineer Ron Bochar, who was nominated for an Oscar for his mixing on Moneyball, thinks so. Directed by Christopher Nolan. In a typical 2020, it would've been just another blockbuster set amongst half a dozen others. Just came out of this film in Australia. Seek it out, if only to marvel at the entertainingly inane glory of what we once had and are in danger of never having again. That's certainly true of Tenet, and not unusual in a story involving time travel. Entire sections of dialogue were missed, making the already jumpy plot nearly impossible to follow. It is an analysis of the work itself for posterity. But, Price says, “I think he is the only one in the world who believes that.”. Cinemas will not necessarily play a film at the recommended level of 7 if they feel it is too loud. Price believes the problem is partly that modern directors have so many more tracks to play with, causing “track overload”, the result being that “the dialogue gets short shrift a lot of the time”. Twitter. Press question mark to learn the rest of the keyboard shortcuts. The Irish Film Institute has been playing Tenet at 4, Markey says, because 6 was “ridiculously loud” when tested. Critics Consensus: A visually dazzling puzzle for film lovers to unlock, Tenet serves up all the cerebral spectacle audiences expect from a Christopher Nolan production. Tenet is not Christopher Nolan’s masterpiece, but it is another thrilling entry into his canon. ReddIt. When he watches films or TV shows at home, he turns on the subtitles in case of clarity issues – he is far from the only one – and will limit the TV’s dynamic range. With John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Juhan Ulfsak. In Nolan’s case, Price and Bochar are confident that the director does it intentionally. The Tenet ending might have you scratching your head. The projectionist was turning the volume down. The sheer meticulousness of Nolan’s grand-canvas action aesthetic is enthralling, as if to compensate for the stray loose threads and teasing paradoxes of his screenplay — or perhaps simply to underline that they don’t matter all that much. These include, in no particular order: playing with the concept of time and narrative chronology, a hallway fight that demonstrates the central "gimmick" of the movie, characters talking about their backstory, interspersed with very brief flashbacks showing us what they're saying (really leaning into the "flash" in flashback), men in tailored suits and slicked back hair, men in masks, making it difficult to understand what they're saying (although it's not as bad in Tenet as Bane in TDKR before they went and adjusted his sound mix), an, at times, overpowering soundscape (music and sound design), a dearth of female characters (I counted four women with speaking lines, three of whom are there for exposition, and only two of whom have any significant screen time), the central emotional throughline (such as it is) expressed primarily by the main female character through her relationship with the main character, elaborate heists, or heist-like action set pieces featuring planes, cars, trucks and automatic weapons - nothing is ever simple in a Nolan movie, an opening sequence that serves as an audition of sorts, the idea of death being an escape out of an alternate reality (not really the major plot point in Tenet that it was in Inception, but it comes into play early on for a bit). Scott Davis - Aug 21, 2020. Big, bold, baffling and bonkers. One was the opening, where I had some problems following the beats (something that was not an issue in other - better - Nolan opening heists, like the ones in The Dark Knight, The Dark Knight Rises or even Inception). He's always watchable as a villain no matter how good, bad or mediocre the surrounding movie.