It hasn’t been a secret that I’ve been excitedly waiting for Tenet for along time now. My anticipation was piqued even more when the 10-minute opening sequence was shown before The Rise of Skywalker last December. When people talk about the movie, inevitably the director, Christopher Nolan is mentioned. That’s because his style and fingerprints on a movie make it very unique. Without a doubt, the cast is exceptional, but it’s really Nolan’s movie all the way. John David Washington and Robert Pattinson are really good in this movie and Elizabeth Debicki continues to make a name for herself as an up and coming star in movies.

When I saw Unhinged a couple weeks ago when it came out, I mentioned how it was the perfect movie to reopen theaters with. I’ll still stand by that, but Tenet is also a front-runner for this place in history, but for the opposite reason. While Unhinged requires very little thinking and is just a sit back and enjoy movie, Tenet is a movie that will require multiple viewings to understand what’s going on. So, in that respect, even if many new movies aren’t out, people can go see it again to find everything they initially missed. In fact, by the time I went to my first showing of the movie tonight, I had already bought tickets for 2 more showings. For those of you who know me, you may laugh but you also know that’s completely within character for me.

So, what did I think of it?

It was great! The visuals and technical aspects of the movie are impeccable. Christopher Nolan knows how to create visually spectacular images and sequences and this movie may be his best at that. If you’re expecting to leave the theater without questions though, you’re either an absolute genius or totally delusional, thus the need to see it again. The story is mind-bending and extremely complex but a fascinating story, to be sure. Plutonium and time travel aside, it’s not exactly Back to the Future. (not that there’s anything wrong with that…) The only thing that was a mark against it is what Nolan’s films often deal with, the dialog is somewhat muddled. Think Bane in The Dark Knight Rises but with almost all the actors.

As is often my pattern, I’ll avoid all spoilers before the movie but after seeing it, I’ll come back and dive into all the details online to explain the things I didn’t understand or missed. Then, when I see it again it is like watching a new movie in some ways because I can see so many things that I missed the first time. With this movie, that was all the more important and so much more makes sense, even before I see it again. Even the title, TENET, which has been dissected tirelessly for months makes so much more sense. I’ll just say that it in addition to it being a palindrome, it spells TEN forwards and backwards, from the beginning and end, and after seeing the movie you’ll see the extreme significance of that.

If you couldn’t tell, I highly recommend the movie but I would offer this piece of advice. See it on the biggest screen possible. There was a very good reason that Nolan wanted this movie to be shown in theaters instead of Video on Demand and delayed the release a couple times for that reason. The plane crash alone is worth it. I can’t wait to see it again!

Follow-up:

I’ve now seen Tenet 3 times in less than a week and in addition to it making much more sense, I enjoy it now even more. I’m not going to tell anyone that I can fully understand everything that is going on because, as my son said best, “Christopher Nolan is one messed up guy”. So many things fail to live up to their hype, but for me, Tenet did. I’m not going to say that it exceeded it, because my expectations were pretty high, but I certainly was not disappointed.