Tenet Movie Review
By Edith Monteagudo and Melissa Digon, Seniors, iPreparatory Academy
By Edith Monteagudo and Melissa Digon, Seniors, iPreparatory Academy
WARNING: THIS REVIEW MAY CONTAIN SPOILERS!!
The future bad guys hire Sator (the antagonist) by leaving instructions that he finds when he is digging up plutonium in Russia. The titular protagonist Tenet, portrayed by John David Washington, is hired by a mysterious organization to prevent Sator from finding all the pieces of the Algorithm and leaving them for the future bad guys. The characters go through several missions and reach the climax that happens in a deserted city in Russia. In order to fully understand the plot, one needs to analyze it from the perspective of each character. Nolan heavily relies on the perspective of different characters to create the mind-blowing plot twists or the dramatic irony. Even though the movie is set around the Protagonist/Tenet, the viewer needs to understand the timeline of the other characters as well.
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The many intuitive creative elements used set the movie apart from other action films. For example, the camera techniques were diverse, but not all outlandish because it would take away from the dialogue and situation of the story. One of our favorite camera techniques in this movie was a scene where standing in a circle, the Protagonist, his sidekick (Neil), and another character, have fast paced discussion and the camera moves around them so the viewer can see who is talking, without any cuts. There are more surprises because of the continuous fast paced dialogue. When the characters take the time away from inverted bullets to come back into their guns, they throw words at each other giving the viewer very little time to understand the complexity of their conversation. This creates a sense of anxiety in the viewer for the next action and a sense of immediate execution of a mission. Suggestion: you may need closed captions to understand what they are saying and who is saying it. However, time travel is the central weapon used by the characters. The movie is based on the closed loop theory, which states that everything has already happened. For example, one of the most interesting creative elements is the creation of a paradox within the plot because of time. Inverting the actions of the past people creates the “Grandfather Paradox.” This paradox explains how if you go back in time and kill your grandfather, you should never exist because they did not give birth to your father who gave life to you, but if you never exist then you cannot go back in time to kill your grandfather meaning you would be alive. |
There’s not one answer as to what will happen. If the future “bad guys” decide to kill the people from the past to save their own future they would be killing their own ancestors, and in turn, possibly never exist. Trying to understand this made our brains mush.
In conclusion, go watch Tenet. (Finger guns pew pew)
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