Tenet: Take a movie with a complicated plot line and heady concept, both of which relies on the viewer understanding a tremendous amount of narrative, while hearing a horrific audio mix/soundtrack that makes the dialogue unintelligible.
The movie is a technical marvel, though fell way short of how Interstellar created a grand sense of awe (for the record, Interstellar at the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum's IMAX was my personal pinnacle experience for seeing movies in a theater) despite having some easy layup cinematic setpieces for mindfucking the viewer. My favorite scenes explored the concept of inversion in a way that was clear to the audience, but there simply wasn't enough of it. For example, the fight in the art depot was fantastic, but moves into genius territory once the audience knew what was actually appening and understood the terror of being attacked by someone from the future moving backwards in time. Using that plot device in a more meaningful way would've sent this movie above and beyond for me.
A lot of people will probably finish this feeling confused, while for me, its dissatisfaction. Hell, the big final battle felt like some weak ass cinematic setpiece in a COD game. I think my favorite part of watching Tenet was Nolan insisting on seeing it in theaters, but wearing headphones somewhat helped make some sense of wtf I was watching. The plot is really not that hard to follow if you could actually hear the dialogue. I liked the movie, but I'm certainly not watching it again knowing it's a showcase of Nolan simultaneously at his best and worst as a filmmaker. Or if I do, I sure as hell will do it with an altered state of mind.
One last thing: Robert Pattinson's performance was the most fun part of the movie and seeing him as an action hero has me sold that he is gonna be fucking awesome in Batman.
