Tenet (2020)

There are certain movies that are difficult to wrap your head around.  I knew Tenet would be like that going into it.  It’s 2½ hours, which is intimidating enough.  But to know that there are people and objects that are temporally inverted adds a whole new level of things to keep track of.

The lead character, known simply as The Protagonist, starts by trying to extract someone from an opera house.  He gets caught up in something much more complicated.  The first hint of this is bullets that can be fired backwards so that they go in to a gun.  There are other items that ostensibly come from the future, which would imply that people can go backwards, as well.  Also, what happened to cause this?  Was there some sort of war?  How was all of this set up?  What’s the end game?

I’m not going to go into the details of the plot, mostly because I can’t remember most of them.  It was that complicated.  I will say that I found a lot of it confusing.  Yes, people can go backwards in time.  It’s tricky and they have to bring inverted oxygen with them.  To give you an example of what I mean, one character drives a normal car while inverted.  The car seems to go on once the character jumps out, but it’s not clear why.  I’m not sure if the car was inverted or if someone was driving the car before (or is it after?) the other character.

This is not a movie for people who don’t like complicated plots.  I like complicated plots and I think I was able to follow most of it, but I’m not sure.  The movie is heavy on the technical side without really making a lot of sense.  I think part of it is that you have to keep track of what’s going backwards and what’s not going backwards.

We get to see at least one big fight in both directions, which is something to watch.  The question is, though, what can be changed?  Could someone from the future do something different on the way back?  What would that even mean?

Stuff like the fight scene was cool, only because I grasped what was going on.  There were a few scenes that I didn’t understand and I felt like I was supposed to.  If you’re reading this and you’re confused by the movie, you’re not alone.  And this isn’t even something that could be explained in a few sentences.  I’d probably need to watch the movie again with notes to understand a lot of it.  This is one of the few times where I might have watched the movie again with a commentary track where someone was explaining it all.  (I’m good with details, but I’m sure there’s a lot that I missed.)

I wouldn’t recommend watching this with someone else who hasn’t seen it yet.  I was watching it with my parents and they had about as many questions as I did.  I had no answers for them.  Yes, it’s a confusing movie.  Now that the movie has been out for a while, I might look around for some explanations.

 

IMDb page

 

Kingsman: The Secret Service (2014)

I remember seeing the coming attractions for Kingsman: The Secret Service.  I have a vague recollection thinking it looked interesting, but I never got around to watching it.  When my parents got it from Netflix, they managed to watch a whole five minutes before turning it off.  I was intrigued.

The story starts in 1997.  A team is trying to extract information from someone.  It’s a dangerous situation.  One member of the team sacrifices himself to save the rest of the team.  The leader of said team, codenamed Galahad, visits the family to inform them of the death, but can’t go into detail.  He does give them a medal with a phone number, should they wish to call in a favor at some later point in time.  The widow refuses it, so Galahad gives it to her son, nicknamed Eggsy.

Almost two decades pass.  Eggsy’s mother has remarried a total loser.  He now has a half sister that he has to worry about.  Eggsy finds himself in trouble with the law and uses the favor to get himself out of jail.  That’s where Eggsy’s adventure begins.  Galahad has recently lost another member of his team named Lancelot.  He sees potential in Eggsy to fill the spot.  Eggsy and several other candidates are tested by Merlin, all competing to become the next Lancelot.

Meanwhile, several important people go missing.  Galahad meets with one abductee who has been mysteriously returned but that turns out to be of little help.  One Richmond Valentine is behind it, but to why?  Much of the plot alternates between finding out what Valentine’s end game is and seeing Eggsy train to hopefully become the next Kingsman.  It’s not easy.  He has to go through several trials, like the water-filled room you may have seen in the coming attractions.

There is a Bond-like element.  Colin Firth is able to pull off the gentlemanly thing as Galahad.  I didn’t quite see it in Taron Egerton as Eggsy, but that may have been intentional.  His transformation may not be complete, as there is apparently going to be a sequel.  Also, this isn’t meant to be Bond.  The movie makes several reference to it not being that kind of movie.  Yes, Valentine is a billionaire in charge of a company that can do great harm, but he’s not over the top.

The movie’s not quite a spoof, but it’s not exactly taking itself too seriously, either.  I think this may be where I like the movie the most.  I’ve never been a huge fan of the spy movie.  Sure, I’ll watch a Bond film if it’s on.  However, I won’t always go out of my way to rent it.  In fact, I had watched The Kingsman when my parents rented it, but realized early on that it wasn’t for them.  Rather than return the movie and let the rental go to waste, I decided to watch it.  (I had seen the coming attractions, so I knew what to expect.)  I may see the sequel, depending on the sequel's coming attractions.)

IMDb page