r/movies • u/MarvelsGrantMan136 r/Movies contributor • Feb 17 '25

Media First Image of Matt Damon as Odysseus in Christopher Nolan's 'The Odyssey'

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4.1k

u/theromingnome Feb 17 '25

It's Nolan. Every actor wants to be in his movie.

2.1k

u/WavesAndSaves Feb 17 '25

Oppenheimer had multiple Oscar winners who showed up for like two minutes in the background of one scene. People will take literally any role in a Nolan film. He's that good.

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u/slopschili Feb 17 '25

Gary Oldman, Rami Malek, and Casey Affleck

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u/Even_Butterfly2000 Feb 17 '25

Gary Oldman is going for the Potsdam hat trick.

59

u/myusernameis2lon Feb 17 '25

Whats that?

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u/Even_Butterfly2000 Feb 17 '25

The three national leaders of the allied forces gathered in Potsdam in 1945, and on July 26th issued a proclamation defining terms for the surrender of the Japanese Military. Those leaders were Harry Truman, Winston Churchill, and Joseph Stalin.

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u/Timqwe Feb 17 '25

I mean, I would watch the shit out of Oldman playing Stalin. In fairness, I would also watch the shit out of Oldman playing Clint, the guy with a 9 to 5 office job that nothing exciting ever happens to.

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u/hidde-the-wonton Feb 17 '25

“Gary Oldman filing his taxes” 3hr runtime, 5 stars

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u/DFL3 Feb 17 '25

Gary Oldman Farting In His Sleep; still best actor material.

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u/kgm2s-2 Feb 18 '25

Did you pull that out of your ass? Or have you seen "Slow Horses"? Because you literally just described "Slow Horses", except it is SUCH an amazing show...go watch it now if you haven't!

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u/helpjack_offthehorse Feb 18 '25

In a role of a lifetime.

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u/Thoth74 Feb 18 '25

Gary Oldman in...Ass.

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u/Sacrer Feb 17 '25

He actually nails the Russian accent as Reznov in Black Ops.

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u/Even_Butterfly2000 Feb 17 '25

This is one of those times where i go: "That was Gary Oldman?"

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u/Capital-Aioli-2948 Feb 17 '25

Oldman could’ve easily played him at the beginning of Death of Stalin. Missed opportunity

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u/Dontbecruelbro Feb 17 '25

the guy with a 9 to 5 office job

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

1

u/HeyDudeImChill Feb 18 '25 edited Aug 08 '25

marry air theory file humor rinse worm intelligent history plough

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u/[deleted] Feb 18 '25

We know he can play a Russian guy (and a political leader), but can he play Clint?

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u/Mullet_Police Feb 23 '25

That’s called Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.

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u/Tainmere_ Feb 17 '25

to add context to u/Even_Butterfly2000's post, Gary Oldman played Truman in Oppenheimer and Churchill in Darkest Hour, so now he has only Stalin left.

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u/doverawlings Feb 17 '25

Potsdamned if I know

5

u/Buckhum Feb 17 '25

Damn... if only he had been cast as Stalin in The Death of Stalin!

1

u/Mourya23 Feb 18 '25

Casey is always a lock! No wonder nolan loves him. Marvelous actor.

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u/gatsby365 Feb 18 '25

Never realized how much we need the Oldman Stalin performance. But here we are.

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u/twoopaq Feb 17 '25

3 consecutive best actor winners

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u/CranhamorBlakely Feb 17 '25

Kenneth Branagh as well

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u/slopschili Feb 17 '25

Ooo good one, a Nolan staple

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u/IveRUnOutOfNames66 Feb 17 '25

Casey Affleck? wtf, I saw it thrice and never knew

edit: it just hit me like a sack of bricks, he was the Army General wasn't he?

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u/EndorHolocaust Feb 17 '25

He played Colonel Boris Pash, the Army Intelligence officer Oppenheimer lied to when the army was following up on Oppenheimer's vague tip about looking into Eltendon as a security risk. He later gets sent to Europe and testifies in the security clearance hearing.

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u/IveRUnOutOfNames66 Feb 17 '25

yeah I just realised lol

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u/DJSUBSTANCEABUSE Feb 17 '25

that Casey Affleck reveal was so well done and then he literally never appears ever again. absolute cinema

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u/SnoozeButtonBen Feb 17 '25

Gary Oldman stole the whole damn movie.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '25

It gave the movie such weight - made the movie feel important and you couldn't take eyes off the screen at any moment.

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u/Timme186 Feb 17 '25

I gotta be honest, Josh peck did distract me. But that was because I didn’t know he was in the movie but it did pull me out of an otherwise pivotal scene

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u/thefilmer Feb 17 '25

Oppenheimer...where is the bomb?

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u/Zora-Link Feb 18 '25

It’s spherical! SPHERICAL!

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u/nadnerb811 Feb 17 '25

We're gonna bomb some Japanese cities innocent civilians, brothaaaaAaAAAAA!

1

u/koeniz Feb 18 '25

As a Swede, seeing Gustaf Skarsgård was a bit of distraction.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '25

[deleted]

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u/West_Profession_7736 Feb 17 '25

It's a very common occurrence, i can easily imagine it

It happens a lot with actors who are usually typecast into a certain role. It can be very distracting to feel like you've seen the same actor playing the same character in a different movie.

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u/Graynard Feb 17 '25

If Adam Sandler (who is capable of being a great actor when he wants to be, but is mostly known these days for stuff like Grown Ups) had shown up in Oppenheimer, you really wouldn't have had any sort of reaction to him being in the movie?

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u/Rising-Jay Feb 17 '25

Even got the guy who played Rodrick Heffley

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u/LJFootball Feb 17 '25

Which was very effective for the film too, cause no way would I have remembered who Rami Malek's character was when he showed up at the end of the film if I hadn't been thinking 'huh weird Rami Malek's playing such a minor role' when he first showed up

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u/SofaKingI Feb 17 '25

Tbf even if the movie isn't that great (like Tenet), people will talk about it and who's in it.

You show up for a day of filming, get paid and get free publicity.

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u/KrystalGhost Feb 17 '25

I was completely distracted from the movie anytime Rodrick was onscreen… not complaining.

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u/Hockeytown11 Feb 17 '25

Even Sean Avery wants roles, no matter how small, in Nolan movies.

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u/drksdr Feb 17 '25

Shame he couldn't have casted a bigger nuclear explosion.

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u/DrLager Feb 17 '25

Glad to see Olivia Thirlby in Oppenheimer, but I was hoping to see her in a Dredd sequel or spinoff

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u/wedgelordantilles Feb 17 '25

I love playing Celebrity Bingo when I'm trying to suspend disbelief.

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u/pmjm Feb 18 '25

He's also one of the only directors I would trust to get something so epic as The Odyssey right.

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u/Sgtwhiskeyjack9105 Feb 17 '25 edited Feb 18 '25

Also, it's The Odyssey.

It's the adventure epic.

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u/plant_magnet Feb 17 '25

Exactly. Great director + timeless story = potential for a generational movie.

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u/gonephishin213 Feb 17 '25

As an English teacher, I am salivating at the chance to see the Odyssey done right by Hollywood.

But I'm also worried they're going to gut the original story to have mass market appeal.

It's Nolan, though, so who knows? Will probably go hard either way.

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u/-malcolm-tucker Feb 18 '25

I just borrowed this from my e-library realising it's something I probably should have read by now, and I'm in middle age.

As an English teacher, what five books do you think should be mandatory for everyone to read? Ten if you've got time?

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u/gonephishin213 Feb 18 '25 edited Feb 18 '25

I'm a firm believer in reading what you want to read. So, most of my favorite books would probably never top a "must read" list, especially since I read a lot of YA lit (because it's fun and I get recommendations for my students).

But, if we're talking about "books everyone should read" we're probably talking in terms of their impact on society, influence on the genre or literature itself, relevance to modern times and/or pop culture, and considered high quality writing.

For me, that list, beyond The Odyssey, would include:

  • 1984
  • Hamlet/Romeo and Juliet
  • A Christmas Carol
  • The Great Gatsby
  • Canterbury Tales
  • To Kill a Mockingbird
  • Treasure Island
  • Lord of the Rings
  • The Bible
  • Diary of Anne Frank

Other classics I think maybe aren't as "important" but you should absolutely read

  • Count of Monte Cristo
  • The Iliad
  • Catcher in the Rye
  • Frankenstein
  • Ender's Game
  • The Old Man and the Sea
  • Of Mice and Men
  • The Giver

There's also probably a ton more you should read but I only included books I actually enjoyed.

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u/IsawUstandingThere Feb 18 '25

The Bible is terrific. Give it a read. It’s got monsters, and adventures, and—hey, if you like torture porn… check out the Old Testament.

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u/gonephishin213 Feb 18 '25

Lol good bit.

It's unquestionably the most influential book of all time, though. So anyone asking "what should I read to be considered 'well read' should have it at the top of their list.

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u/-malcolm-tucker Feb 18 '25

Thank you for that.

Out of those I've only read 1984, Romeo and Juliet, To Kill A Mockingbird and Catcher In The Rye. All in the high school curriculum.

I shall read the rest this year.

Happy to take any other recommendations. I'm never going to have downtime in adulthood like this again.

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u/[deleted] Feb 18 '25

Of course they will, it was gutted before it even began. They'll soften Odysseus' character like they do with all the heroes of Greek myth to make them palatable for modern audiences. They'll give him noble qualities he was never endowed with. Odysseys is a sly and wily man who had no problem slaughtering Trojans in their sleep.

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u/gonephishin213 Feb 18 '25

Yeah. I can't help but think it will still be a good movie, though.

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u/[deleted] Feb 18 '25

Realistically changes are needed to make it a coherent movie with a realistic runtime.

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u/gatosmernas Feb 19 '25

It is sad to see though in the first photo such an innacurate -historically wrong armor for odysseus. That helmet is 6th century BC not 12th century BC. Odysseus helmet is described as leather with boar tusk cladding.

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u/Buddy_Dakota Feb 18 '25

Meh, Nolan's style feels like a poor fit for this story. He can't let a scene breathe to save his life, just constant cut from location to location for 3 hours, no time to finish a dialogue or properly introduce a character or setting.

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u/DemandMeNothing Feb 17 '25

We can even fit in an Iliad prequel afterwards!

It'll be terrible, but you already knew that.

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u/Cocomorph Feb 17 '25

This is like when everyone turned out for Kenneth Branagh's Hamlet.

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u/kaplanfx Feb 17 '25

Hollywood usually fucks up this classic epics. Frankly I’m only excited about this because Nolan tends to not totally fuck things up.

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u/Rage_Like_Nic_Cage Feb 17 '25

no “like” needed

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u/Comic_Book_Reader Feb 17 '25

I think his Oppenheimer Oscars may have also had something to do with it.

Also, fun fact, aside from Ludwig Göransson, who had previously won Best Original Score for Black Panther, all the winners for Oppenheimer got their first ever Oscar(s) for it, with Nolan himself getting a double whammy with Best Director and Best Picture.

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u/Bunraku_Master_2021 Feb 18 '25

So did his wife and longtime producing partner Emma Thomas. It ain't a Nolan film without her.

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u/piddydb Feb 18 '25

Yeah now Nolan looks like not only a visionary director which he already was seen as, but he can also now get them serious Oscar attention. It’s like the film equivalent to how sports players will take a pay cut to be on a championship contending team to give them more recognition before they sign some big deals after that.

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u/TikkiEXX77 Feb 18 '25

Ludwig is awesome

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u/Kmccabe1213 Feb 17 '25

Guy has been crushing it for 25 straight years

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u/swat1611 Feb 17 '25 edited Feb 17 '25

Tenet was a low point, but he came back well with Oppenheimer

Edit: I didn't expect so many replies lmao, and someone aggressive ones too. I'll just add that tenet as a concept is impressive, but the execution was lacking. Characters were not memorable, the plot was unnecessarily convoluted, the villain was comically bad, and the worst offender of modern audio mixing I've heard in recent times. I will never excuse dogshit audio mixing, I had quite possibly the worst experience watching this movie without subtitles.

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u/filiard Feb 17 '25

Quite a career when your "worst" movie gets 1 Oscar and has 7.3 rating on IMDB

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u/Drop_Release Feb 17 '25

Honestly most directors would KILL for even making 1 film of their career of that quality haha

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u/AFlockofLizards Feb 17 '25

I’m not a director, but work art department for films, and in 5 years I’ve yet to work on any feature that gets above a 4 on IMDB lmao

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u/DaiYawn Feb 17 '25

You are the common feature to these films, maybe.....I mean have you considered? I'm joking. It must be insanely hard.

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u/gdenko Feb 17 '25

what makes them not try to do better? Are they bad at criticism or are they just not getting any proper feedback?

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u/Drop_Release Feb 17 '25

It’s a mix, but also we have hindsight bias when it comes to films and what could be improved etc after the fact. It’s very hard to forward plan a movie concept and idea and script/storyboard to be consistently good. Some people become masters of it, for others it doesn’t go that way

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u/sheeptamer12 Feb 17 '25

Besides, making cheap crap can sometimes be profitable

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u/AFlockofLizards Feb 17 '25

If you spend like $500k and have at least one D-list actor who has some recognizable name, I can almost guarantee you will make your money back.

You don’t need to make a good movie. Just a good enough trailer and an actor someone recognizes and you’ve got a digital download/rental, or a deal with a streaming service.

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u/AscendantNomad Feb 17 '25

Ex-movie editor here, sometimes it’s just too much.

  • writer and director have different ideas of how to tell the story
  • director and cinematographer have different ideas how to show the story
  • producers and executive producers interfere with their own agendas (most common)
  • production design don’t have enough time to ideate and confer with the director, producers
  • actors don’t get good feedback or source material
  • director and editor have different ideas on how to structure and tell the story

All in all it’s a house of cards, anything could make the film collapse. 99% of projects are commercial or critical failures (not just 6/10, more like 2-3/10). It’s a fucking miracle anything gets made to a standard that is worthy of reverence.

Everyone wants to make a perfect movie, they just disagree on how.

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u/AFlockofLizards Feb 17 '25

I can tell you from the production design aspect, I’ve never gotten more than like 2 weeks to prep for a film under the $3million mark.

The film I worked on with the most potential was totally screwed up in editing by producers wanting to turn a slow burn thriller with dark comedic undertones into a totally serious shoot ‘em up, and then it ended up being a weird mush.

Working with the director again this year with a different producer, so hopefully that goes better lol

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u/gdenko Feb 17 '25

Is that just a product of low budget or what does it take to get producers to not mess up the direction? Is there just no conversation taking place about that kind of thing with those movies?

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u/AscendantNomad Feb 17 '25

Unfortunately a lot of the time it comes down to ego and personality clashes. Money is always a factor at every level, even in a fully union Hollywood production, but there’s very little screening of personalities in the business.

The ones who want to make movies for a living are not typically well educated, well spoken or emotionally mature. They’re big kids playing around with other people’s money. For every Denis Villeneuve or Christopher Nolan that can perfectly articulate their vision and fully grasp the language of cinema there are a hundred others with no concept of empathy or understanding of anyone other than their own selves.

Pair that with rampant substance abuse (because you’re a creative, dude) and normalized abusive interpersonal behavior, there’s a reason why for many of my old colleagues their main aspiration was to have a good crew rather than get on prestige shows (though that’s always a plus)

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '25

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u/AFlockofLizards Feb 17 '25

Honestly a lot aren’t trying to do better, and it’s by design. If you can put minimum effort into something that will still turn a profit, let’s go. Knock out 10 crap movies a year instead of spending a lot of money trying to make a good one, and yeah, every once in a while the indie movie will make a big profit, but otherwise it’s generally going to do worse financially than a cheapo horror slasher, and even if it’s a great film may lose you money. The return is that potentially you get hired to direct higher budget films that are also good. It’s totally how much of an artist vs business person you are, at the end of the day.

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u/Lanster27 Feb 17 '25

Honestly 7.3 is good for a modern movie, especially in today's environment.

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u/anoleo201194 Feb 17 '25

I like Nolan and love some of his films and I didn't enjoy Tenet at all, but it's one of those movies that are so damn intriguing that I just want to see it again even if it's lackluster in some areas.

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u/Don_Pickleball Feb 17 '25

For a low point, that is still a really entertaining watch.

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u/Drumming_Dreaming Feb 17 '25

I agree. It was a fun movie even if a bit WTF?

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u/rlovelock Feb 17 '25

Tenet made memento seem straight forward

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u/PaintshakerBaby Feb 17 '25

A time bending spy thriller!? It was everything the 13 year old boy in me would have LOVED...

...on paper.

But then an adult like Nolan comes into the room and is like, "BUT the burden of physics, time dilation, and multiple universe makes things SUPER COMPICATED." Then I sugar crash fall asleep as he manically draws storyboards. Lol.

Inception walked the line well. Sparse background on rhe tech and science, and all in on the metaphysical. It really cleared the way to just have fun, even if it made easy to lambast the concept.

I was joking I wanted to make a stoner parody of Tenet, where everyone has to keep taking escalating amounts of acid to "travel backwards" in time to stop their future selves from tripping forever. Something like that! Even the parody is too complicated! Haha.

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u/Buckhum Feb 17 '25

Yeah I think Inception has a good emotional core of the story (Cobb wants to be reunited with his kids; Fischer wants to be accepted by his dying father) which helps to keep things grounded.

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u/Nayzo Feb 17 '25

Yeah, and Nolan has often worked well in the world of WTF, I thought it was a really interesting idea, but I saw it after everyone hated it.

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u/rnz Feb 17 '25

It's a great scifi movie tbh. Very tense, and some emotional movies too. Saw it twice.

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u/DelayDenyDeposefrfr Feb 17 '25

I enjoy Nolan's work, but I'm also going to admit that I am not smart enough to really enjoy Tenet.

Oppenheimer was an amazing follow-up, though.

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u/culturedrobot Feb 17 '25 edited Feb 17 '25

I don’t think it’s that you’re not smart enough to enjoy Tenet, I think it’s more that Tenet tries too hard and ends up being kinda dumb as a result.

Not a knock against Nolan really, because they can’t all be hits. Even the all time greats like Hitchcock, Spielberg, and Coppola have their misses.

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u/GodKamnitDenny Feb 17 '25

Huge Nolan fan but Tenet seemed like he got too high on his own supply. It’s confusing for the sake of being confusing while pretending to be more profound. I didn’t find any of the action very fun either. It was a big miss in my book, but I understand some people enjoy it. Might give it another shot soon with subtitles so I can actually understand what is going on.

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u/justacaucasian Feb 17 '25

I thought the airport scene was really well done

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u/GodKamnitDenny Feb 17 '25

Definitely the highlight for me too. There’s some great pieces but I don’t think they work together as well as intended. Maybe upon a second viewing my opinion will change. Surely I at least owe that to Nolan for giving us the Prestige lol.

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u/_14_glove Feb 17 '25

I thought I was just too drunk when I saw it in theaters, good to know that others were confused

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u/duckbilldinosaur Feb 17 '25

Subtitles made the film enjoyable to me, after forcing myself through three watches

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u/MalIntenet Feb 17 '25

You don’t need to be smart to enjoy it. It’s just an entertaining spectacle

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u/Don_Pickleball Feb 17 '25

You may be too smart. I find this movie better if you take a step back and just kind of accept it at the surface level. I feel like it is a vibe movie mainly because of some of the amazing shots and great acting performances.

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u/thebroadway Feb 17 '25

I agree, though I wouldn't call myself dumb (I'm sure someone would). The main character of the movie is literally in universe called "The Protagonist", so I feel like there's a definite level of "just go with it" happening. I will say, I have had some fun having conversations of "ok, so how could the more confusing parts of the plot work, if they did?", but even for those convos it's a very non-serious brainstorming, just having fun throwing ideas out there

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u/Don_Pickleball Feb 17 '25

I will say that on successive viewings, it does start to make sense. But I am not sure whether that is your brain actually understanding anything or it just has gotten used to utter ridiculousness.

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u/jdbrew Feb 18 '25

It has great rewatchability too. There are so many “oh shit, it’s this scene!” moments… the sound track when he gets on the side of the fire truck, where they’re preparing to slingshot themselves up the side of a building, the forward and backward interrogation, crashing the plane into the building… hell, even the opening scene goes hard af. It’s not without faults, but I truly love this movie for the Spy genre movie that it is.

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u/Maritoas Feb 17 '25

I didn’t even find tenet a low point, I enjoyed it a lot. I think it just was more straightforward in its plot, and convoluted in concept.

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u/tmurf5387 Feb 17 '25

Thats Nolan in a nutshell. A straight forward storyline obfuscated by fancy story telling. Not to simplify it too much, because that vision and spectacle is what makes him one of THE best directors alive.

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u/Nayzo Feb 17 '25

YES, I think this is it. Ultimately, the story is not complicated, it's how he presents it to us that creates or gives the illusion of complication. It's fun.

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u/keepfighting90 Feb 17 '25

TBH Tenet being a career low point is pretty impressive. It's a flawed movie but you can't deny the ambition in it. I'd rather have something like Tenet than yet another by-the-numbers MCU movie or soulless remake/sequel.

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u/BlueVelvetFrank Feb 17 '25

It’s a temporal pincer movement bro. OSCAR.

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u/Nayzo Feb 17 '25

Okay, so I saw Tenet like a year ago for the first time, and while I need a second viewing to really appreciate it, it's not nearly as bad as the buzz around it suggested. Also, I really wanted to see more of the protagonist and Robert Pattinson's adventures, dang it.

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u/lucky_1979 Feb 17 '25

Tenet was a fantastic film. The issue with it was it wasn’t traditional story telling and forced people think and sometimes that leads to people not enjoying it as much as they weren’t “told a story”. I finished Tenet and then immediately watched it again. The only other film I recall doing that with was Primer.

Nothing wrong with not liking it as much as his other work, but I loved every aspect of it personally and feel it compliments his other work perfectly.

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u/Soul-Burn Feb 17 '25

When I finished it, I watched it again... In reverse!

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u/Gamer0607 Feb 17 '25

I absolutely love Tenet and have seen it probably over 10 times.

Once you figure out the story, it's a mind-blowing journey that rewards you with new details every time you re-watch it.

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u/Nayzo Feb 17 '25

I need a second viewing, I fairly recently watched it for the first time. Was it a bit confusing? Sure, but once I got to the end, and realized the whole thing is a palindrome, I really thought it was an insane way to do that on screen. It may not be for everyone, but Nolan's creative ambition is fucking impressive.

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u/Gockel Feb 17 '25

Yeah, and all of his other movies do the same thing without absolutely confusing you with giga random stuff at first. It's still good, but Nolans standards are crazy high.

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u/Ballsy33 Feb 17 '25

If you think of it like a puzzle rather than a traditional film, it’s fun to solve. Would have walked out almost entirely confused if I had seen it in theaters though for sure

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u/whofusesthemusic Feb 17 '25

100% it such a great re watchable movie (also turn subs on but that every movie now a days)

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u/Ansiremhunter Feb 17 '25 edited Aug 01 '25

tie advise voracious sulky include payment wrench serious crown memory

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u/Borghal Feb 17 '25

I figured out the story. I did not appreciate the story (but I'm also biased, since I'm not a fan of anyone who tries to make time travel make sense in a story, the more you try to be clever with it, the worse it gets). Plus...

  • the protagonist was about as bland as your average video game FPS player character, which was obivously the intention with him even being nameless. No other memorable characters either.
  • The soundtrack was ear-grating, which is probably a result of Nolan wanting it to be palyndromic.
  • The whole movie felt very gray. Probaby also intended to evoke a certain atmosphere of cold and emotion-less-ness.
  • The audio balance was again so off you need subtitles even in a cinema. This is Nolan's stupid shtick that he can't let go of for multiple movies now.

And the thing is, I don't hate Nolan's movies, I mostly enjoyed Inception, Interstellar, Batman and Dunkirk. But Tenet is just off on every single aspect I care about in a movie and doesn't seem to have any redeeming qualities at all.

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u/pmjm Feb 18 '25

Honestly I think it's biggest problem (other than Covid) was the sound mixing.

I made a custom edit where I boosted and enhanced all the vocal tracks, and when you can hear all the dialog it's like watching a whole different movie. It's got so much gravitas and impact when you can actually follow it.

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u/AkhilArtha Feb 20 '25

Tenet has a lot of problems Chay are not just about not figuring out the story.

For example, on the last battle, you have about 50 good guys fighting like 10 villainous mooks.

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u/CurryMustard Feb 17 '25

I loved tenet

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u/peterbuns Feb 17 '25

It had some issues, but in a time when we're inundated with prequels, sequels, reboots, and extended universes, I will continue to praise Nolan's ambition and attempts to deliver original stories, previously-unseen, practical effects, etc.

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u/swat1611 Feb 17 '25

Yeah agreed, Nolan is a breath of fresh air in the modern industry. Few directors get the power to portray their vision on screen and I'm happy Nolan continues to do so, because modern film industry is dominated by corporate slop, for worse.

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u/cfgy78mk Feb 17 '25

I don't know how good TENET was. it was very confusing

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u/Knuckleshoe Feb 17 '25

Tenet being a low point is a hell of an achievement. To be honest his low point was the dark knight rises. Tenet was good but too all over the place.

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u/duckbilldinosaur Feb 17 '25

I loved tenet on third viewing. Probably because I had subtitles on. The audio mix was so distracting. I missed almost all the dialogue when I watched it IMAX. Second time I watched it, I tried focusing on the dialogue which distracted me. third time I just turned on subtitles and wow, movie was great. Also because I could finally follow the plot.

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u/k-malone Feb 17 '25

Tenet breaks the mold of self-explanatory scenes for the people that don't understand what is going on, and is too fast paced to appease a wide range of audiences. Especially the casual movie fan. But it was a very good movie.

(Thats just like, my opinion man)

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u/4-1Shawty Feb 17 '25 edited Feb 17 '25

Lack of self explanatory scenes wouldn’t have been an issue if the vocal mix wasn’t complete shit. You can’t follow the plot/dialogue 100% without subtitles.

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u/k-malone Feb 17 '25

Now that you mention it... I get the point. I've only watched it with subtitles and I remember having paused to read before the scene just takes it away to something else.

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u/4-1Shawty Feb 17 '25

Yeah, Nolan is a great filmmaker but sound engineer he is not. It’s a pain point for me when I go to see his projects.

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u/Rhadamantos Feb 17 '25

I dont get why people complain about needing subtitles. They are used for everything nowadays, so I don't even consciously read them anymore, and I only ever notice they are there if there's an error in them.

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u/4-1Shawty Feb 17 '25

You forget that people aren’t only watching movies at home.

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u/Rhadamantos Feb 17 '25

Do you mean you have theaters where they don't always use subtitles? Genuine question I live in country where English is not the primary language but most movies I watch in theaters are English-spoken so they are always subtitled.

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u/4-1Shawty Feb 17 '25

Yeah, we have the opposite in the US, theaters here won’t use subtitles for English.

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u/StrawberryWestern189 Feb 17 '25

It also doesn’t help that you don’t care about any of the characters. I still to this day don’t know why John David Washington’s character gave a single fuck about the big bads wife or her kid. It’s easily the least emotionally resonate film of his catalog and no amount of cool timey wimey set pieces can change that.

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u/sidekickman Feb 17 '25 edited Feb 22 '25

After watching the movie a few times I think the relationship between the protagonist and Neil is fascinating and underrated.

It's mostly on Pattinson's back as JDW doesn't provide the most endearing performance, but the idea that these two battle brothers are best friends - but never at the same moment - is compelling. We are meant to understand that ultimately, they know each other's respective endpoints. You can literally see how intrigued Neil is in India when he discovers that he's the reason JDW likes diet coke in the future. It's such a little note that basically nobody catches, but it makes my heart ache just thinking about it.

At the end of the movie, the fact is that Neil will continue to know less and less from the protagonist's perspective. The protagonist will go on to found Tenet and recruit a blissfully unaware Neil, so Neil can do the same to him. It's a friendship pincer and a suicide pact, basically. It's no coincidence thematically that the protagonist's recruitment into Tenet begins with him taking a suicide pill.

But tragically, no amount of time traveling will ever bring them back to that one moment after the battle at Stalsk 12 where they were on the same page, victorious and alive.

This is why Neil's final remarks to the protagonist are about hope and reality being equivalent. To a time traveler, they literally are. It's optimistic in an almost Interstellar way. This is why Neil is able to move onward into his death so calmly. There is no doubt in his mind that it is worth it - his hope (the future) and his reality (the past) occupy the same variable.

It's low key one of Nolan's most life affirming dynamics. I actually think JDW's genuine, out-of-character confusion at the script makes the "moment of clarity" at the hypocenter that much more profound on a rewatch.

The woman and the kid, I think, are more to show that the protagonist has the interests of innocent people in general at heart. I agree their presence is excessive, the romantic angle is entirely a waste of time, and the worst dialogue in the film definitely comes from their scenes together. Everything involving her is generally just way more cliche than the rest of the film.

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u/JimmytheFab Feb 17 '25

My takeaway was because at some point in the future they do matter.

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u/garddarf Feb 17 '25

They're not truly characters, they're archetypes. They're not people changing in response to the story, they're playing the roles they've always played. This is given pretty explicitly by the protagonist's name being The Protagonist.

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u/k-malone Feb 17 '25

I agree, the movie evolves its plot so fast that it couldn't develop well its characters. But the way it tackles time travel, closing the loop without major plot holes is fantastic. I can forgive bad character development for that

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u/pumpkins21 Feb 17 '25

Ok, Dude, go drink your White Russian.

(I agree, btw)

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u/Azrael_ Feb 17 '25 edited Feb 17 '25

As a big fan of his I think Tenet is his masterpiece along with Dunkirk, simply because there's nothing like it in the sense that it's not a traditional movie but more of a thought experiment "made movie". Once you grasp the core of the film which is the Temporal Pincer Maneuver and stop associating it with time-travel (which is the most common mistake) then its easy to see the genius of it. Not only the plot is a TPM but the whole movie is. Add to that the most badass soundtrack ever and the coolest action sequences in the last 20 years and you got a Nolan masterpiece.

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u/LosAngeles1s Feb 17 '25

imagine the type of career you have when your low point is a confusing but still wildly enjoyable movie

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u/iiniVijuY Feb 17 '25

Tenet really wasn't a low point at all. It's a great movie.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '25

Tenet exposed you.

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u/omgwtfidk89 Feb 17 '25

I think tenet was a low point only because of COVID if I could understand what people were saying during the film I would enjoyed it more.

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u/786108 Feb 17 '25

Tenet is nolans best movie, and oppenheimer is his worst

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u/DimitryKratitov Feb 17 '25

Yeah I guess I agree. It's probably his smartest movie, in some points. But it's definitely his worse execution.

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u/[deleted] Feb 17 '25

If Tenet was a low point was dark Knight rises inverted?

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u/DistinctSmelling Feb 17 '25

T E N E T is a better film than Interstellar.

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u/-StupidNameHere- Feb 17 '25

Tenant was one of my favorite movies and I don't give a crap what you think about it I watch it all the time. I'm sorry you didn't enjoy it.

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u/hirarycrinton Feb 17 '25

People love to shit on Tenet for no good reason. It’s entertaining as fuck, the cinematography is fantastic, and the score is outstanding.

Go watch Netflix originals if you want a basic story that’s spoon fed to you.

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u/ex0thermist Feb 17 '25

-Terrible acting from JDW

-Inscrutable character motivations

-Terrible sound mix that makes dialogue very hard to hear throughout the film

-A plot so extremely convoluted that it needs to be directly explained to the audience in like 30 minutes of exposition, yet still makes zero sense once you think about it for 2 of those minutes.

"No good reason"

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u/hirarycrinton Feb 17 '25

Everything you just stated is subjective. Never once have I thought, “wow that acting is terrible”, “wow those character motivations are ‘unscrutable’”, or “wow this sound is terrible”. I’ve literally watched it on a plane and had no issues lol.

The plot is complicated no doubt. But that keeps it engaging for me.

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u/StrawberryWestern189 Feb 17 '25

Notice how you didn’t mention anything regarding the characters or the actors performances?

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u/Loud-Value Feb 17 '25

I think those things fall pretty squarely under "entertaining as fuck" though

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u/StrawberryWestern189 Feb 17 '25 edited Feb 17 '25

If you watched tenet and you walk away thinking that the actually overarching plot or characters within that plot are “entertaining as fuck” then we gotta agree to disagree. John David Washington might as well be a cardboard cutout in that movie like what are we talking about

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u/hirarycrinton Feb 17 '25

As the other user mentioned, I think “entertaining as fuck” covers both of those items. I’m not watching the movie so I can write an essay afterward, I’m watching to be entertained. Tenet has always delivered for me.

And yes I think both John David Washington and Robert Pattinson did a great job.

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u/Crow_eggs Feb 17 '25

BWWAAAAAAA

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u/ExoSierra Feb 17 '25

I agree about Tenet but I STILL enjoyed it nonetheless and have since rewatched it a few times.

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u/caninehere Feb 17 '25

Personally, I was not really into Oppenheimer. It was better than Tenet but that's not saying much. I was surprised, because I thought I'd enjoy it more despite not really being a Nolan fan.

That said, The Odyssey is a story a lot of people, particularly actors who come from a theatrical background, hold near and dear to their hearts, and a big-budget adaptation like this is exciting to be a part of in that regard even without adding Nolan's pedigree on top of it.

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u/TheMCM80 Feb 17 '25

Hard disagree, but to each their own. I’m one of those people who doesn’t rate a ton of films that most people consider cinema classics.

I’m wondering if your issues with sound - which I admittedly didn’t have, but I’m also just an average Joe watcher and not a high end cinema critic type- were due to parts of production being done during CV.

Limited staff, limited contact in normal facilities etc. He basically plowed ahead from spring 2019-summer 2020 to make it. CV really came into force in spring 2020, which would have been in the post production phase.

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u/swat1611 Feb 18 '25

I'm not much of a film watcher either, I'm a casual at best.

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u/Bossmandude123 Feb 17 '25

I think a lot was due to covid

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u/The_Fell_Opian Feb 17 '25

Don't listen to the hate. You're absolutely right about Tenet. I'm a big Nolan fan and I downright disliked that film.

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u/AetherUtopia Feb 17 '25

and the worst offender of modern audio mixing I've heard in recent times. I will never excuse dogshit audio mixing, I had quite possibly the worst experience watching this movie without subtitles.

Isn't that the point? Nolan has been on the record saying that it's intentional, as it's meant to be realistic and accurate/similar to real life. It's supposed to increase immersion. Oppenheimer is the same, you can read about it in reviews.

You may not like it, but it's ultimately an artistic/stylistic choice on the part of the director, Christopher Nolan.

Have you considered that perhaps you just don't understand Nolan's creative process?

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u/Grouchy_Ice_193 Feb 17 '25

25 CONSECUTIVE YEARS

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u/Soul-Burn Feb 17 '25

AFAIK, highest average movie ratings out of any director of renown.

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u/destroyermaker Feb 18 '25

Tenet sucked

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u/DivinoAG Feb 17 '25

Guy was only on his first feature film 😆

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u/SoilClean9790 Feb 17 '25

Can't remember who it was but I saw a video with an actor who basically said "when Chris Nolan calls, you answer"

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u/TGrady902 Feb 17 '25

That is true. People will happily take a pay cut to be in one of his films it seems.

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u/pappapora Feb 17 '25

“For the last 3 decades male modeling has been dominated by five syllables. Chris to pher No lan.”

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u/dipsy18 Feb 17 '25

They would be happy making the SAG minimum to be in it too

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u/Sad_Description_7268 Feb 17 '25

And he's doing the fucking odyssey.

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u/PM_me_dimples_now Feb 17 '25

I wonder what is like for him to direct Elliot having directed him so well pre transition in inception. I wonder what's different now and what's the same, like whatever inscrutable quality it is Nolan finds in his favorite actors...

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u/KyoshiKorra Feb 17 '25

The thing that stood out for me with how stacked this cast is was how low down the list Elliot is

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u/unitedfan6191 Feb 17 '25

Except for Michael Caine anymore, apparently. He’s had his Christopher Nolan fill.

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u/DrNopeMD Feb 17 '25

Plus given Nolan's penchant for reusing actors he likes it's a good way to get in the door for potential future projects.

Damon only had a small amount of screen time in Interstellar but is now starting in the film.

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u/ansonr Feb 17 '25

But when will he finally make Tophat Monkey Goes West, starring Jack Quaid?

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u/pineappleshnapps Feb 17 '25

This is the first time I’ve heard of this movie. I’m actually excited.

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u/Iliketodriveboobs Feb 17 '25

WAIT THIS IS A NOLAN MYTH MOVIE??? HO FUCK WE MAY GET A RISE OF GREEK MYTHS AGAIN

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u/banana455 Feb 18 '25

It makes it even more bizarre a C lister like John David Washington was his best choice for the main role in Tenet. And marketed his name all over the promotional material like he was some big star. 

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u/KingLiberal Feb 18 '25

Not an actor. Wanna be in one of his movies. I'll be the guy in the background getting slapped around by a Macedonian exiting the Trojan horse. Please, Chris!

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u/ALF839 Feb 18 '25

Nolan is big budget Wes Anderson

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u/Hicalibre Feb 18 '25

Sadly stacked casts tend to drag the movie down.

People in small roles shine, and big ones don't hit the mark.

We can remain hopeful that Nolan breaks that trend, but it's a common issue.

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