Go Back In Time With TENET – #EricSays Movie Review

by | Sep 11, 2020

Christopher Nolan, the mind-bending director of movies like ‘Inception‘ and ‘Memento‘, has done it again with his new movie ‘Tenet’.  This flick can be seen at real life actual movie theaters, so fill the inside of your face mask with popcorn and go to your local megaplex and watch it.
This movie made me feel like I went back in time.  Specifically, back to 2004 when my favorite micro-budget movie ‘Primer‘ came out.  I love micro budget movies made for less than $50k like Primer (which was shot right here in Addison Texas), especially when they are written well.  Tenet shares a few time travel ‘themes’ with Primer, which is actually okay because it’s kinda cool to see the same ideas handled in a small movie way vs. the mega budget way Tenet handles it.
What is Tenet about?   Hmmmmm, if I could explain it then I’d be a lot smarter than I pretend to be, but I’ll give it a shot. Tenet supposes that a future generation of man has figured out a way to infuse ‘backward-ness’ into objects and people. Objects can behave backwards like you are watching reversed time, and people can kind of do the same thing by going into a device and traveling backwards in real time while their doppleganger self travels parallel with them going forwards in time. You’ll need to re-read that sentence about five times.
Is Tenet any good?  Yes!!!  It is a great action movie wrapped around a time travel plot. The first half of the movie is easy to grasp and filled with fun action and dialogue. The second half, especially the final battle, will have you scratching your head to try and figure out all the crazy time-loops that are going on at the same time on screen. This bothers some people, but not me, I just sat back and enjoyed all the action while trying to figure out little time nuggets here and there. Of course, this meant I had to see it again. Which I did, and loved it even more the second time.
I plan on seeing it a few more times, and I’ll need to – just so I can grasp everything. I’m also going to travel backwards in time when physical media was a thing, and re-watch my Primer DVD again. Maybe I’ll understand it this time.
Eric Jewell – Department Head of MediaTech’s Digital Film and Video Production Program