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(calm instrumental music)
What's up, Wisecrack?
Michael here to talk about
the single cinematic bright spot of 2020:
Christopher Nolan's blockbuster film "Tenet."
Now, "Tenet" has everything we've come to love
in a Nolan film.
Deep characterization.
- I'm the protagonist.
- [Michael] Check.
- Riveting action scenes.
- I think that looks vegetarian.
I think they both look vegetarian (indistinct), you know?
- Check.
And a mind blowing premise
that will make you rethink everything you...
You know what?
I can't do this anymore.
I can't.
It's not even funny.
The truth is, is that "Tenet" is bad.
Like really bad.
Look, we're huge in Nolan fans, and we tried.
And to everyone defending this film online,
I really hope it works out for you.
While plenty of critics have picked apart the film
and its nonsensical plot,
we think their real problem is a bit more structural,
specifically the real reason "Tenet" fails
has less to do with the confusing mechanics
of how a bullet moves backwards in time.
- Don't try to understand it.
Feel it.
- Well, okay, actually that is part of it,
but rather the bigger problem
is that the film's complexity dooms it to fail
at some very basic, ahem, tenets of screenwriting.
So join me for this Wisecrack edition
on "Tenet": What Went Wrong?
Also spoilers ahead for "Tenet," "Inception,"
and "The Prestige."
And before we continue, I wanna give a shout-out
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Now, back to the show.
Now, a quick recap for those who haven't seen it.
And full disclosure,
this film doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
- Forward antagonists, inverted antagonists,
they have it all.
- [Michael] "Tenet" opens with the unnamed Protagonist
taking part in a siege on an opera house.
While there, he retrieves a loot box from a duffel bag,
only to find himself captured by the enemy.
Being all hardcore and stuff, our hero takes a suicide pill
rather than snitch on his team.
But instead of dying, he wakes up and is recruited
into a mysterious group with the dumbest secret handshake.
- All I have for you is a gesture
in combination with a word, tenet.
- [Michael] After a brief, inexplicably stint
at an offshore wind farm,
the Protagonist learns that the future is sending weapons
literally backwards in time,
and it's his job to find out why, or something.
To that end, he teams up with Edward Cullen
to take down the man importing
these inverted weapons, Andrei Sator.
But in order to get close to him,
the Protagonist must enlist the help
of Sator's estranged wife, Kat.
After he initially tricks Sator into believing
he's an arms trader, the Protagonist ends up helping Sator
steal the very same loot box.
But oh no!
This loot box is basically an Infinity Stone.
And now that Sator has collected all of them,
he can reverse the flow of time entirely,
in effect killing himself and ending the entire world.
- His death activates the algorithm.
He dies, the world ends.
- [Michael] To do that, Sator of travels back in time
to his most happy memory,
but our heroes are one step ahead of him.
While Kat stalls for time, they steal all the loot boxes.
Then she deals the finishing blow.
And in the end, the Protagonist learns
that he actually goes on to found the organization Tenet,
and saving the world was all part
of this future self's plan.
- This whole operation's a temporal pincer.
- Whose?
- Yours.
- If you could follow all of that,
congratulations, you're way smarter than I am.
- [Man] Does your head hurt yet?
- [Michael] But baffling plot aside,
where does "Tenet" really go wrong?
Well, we can point to the wonky editing.
(dramatic instrumental music)
(gun firing)
(door clacking)
- Enough business, my love.
- We think the problem lies in the film's structure,
specifically its first act.
Now, for those of you not cutting your teeth
as an underpaid Hollywood script reader,
most blockbuster films, including "Tenet,"
follow your typical three act structure,
i.e. a beginning, middle, and end.
In the first act, you learn about the characters,
their world, and their goals.
In "Tenet," the Protagonist is recruited
into the titular organization, told about inverted weapons,
and tasked with taking down the villain.
In the second act, you watch the heroes pursue their goals.
Usually though, things don't go smoothly
and they suffer a pretty big setback
halfway through the second act.
This is called the midpoint.
Again, "Tenet" mirrors the structure pretty closely.
The Protagonist cozies up to Sator
only to accidentally help him steal the loot box.
And oh yeah, Kat gets shot.
(gun firing) (Kat screaming)
According to the Hollywood formula,
heroes then spend the back half of the second act
reacting to this new situation,
only to have the rug seriously ripped out
from under them again.
- What a fitting end to your life's pursuits.
You're about to become a permanent addition
to this archeological find.
- [Michael] While the Protagonist goes backwards in time
to save Kat, they have a new problem to deal with.
Sator is now able to end the world.
- The end of...
Can you be a little more precise?
- Everyone and everything that's ever lives destroyed.
- [Michael] This launches you into the third act,
in which the heroes have to overcome all their problems
and hopefully save the day.
And yeah, you know how that goes with "Tenet."
- You've known me for years?
(melancholy instrumental music)
- For me, I think this is the end of a beautiful friendship.
- But for me it's just the beginning.
- We get up to some stuff.
- Now, if this all stupidly vague or overly prescriptive,
that's because it is.
Three act structure isn't the be all, end all to film.
Many films deviate from such conventions,
like "Pulp Fiction,"
to just about any Richard Linklater work.
But most are reasonably faithful to it,
including some of Nolan's greatest works,
like "The Prestige" and "Inception."
But "Tenet" differs from these two films in one key regard:
the first act.
Whereas the first act of "Inception" and "Prestige"
set them up for success,
the first act of "Tenet" dooms
the rest of the film to failure.
In other words, in order to understand
why the end of the film is so messy,
we need to look at its beginning.
Take it from a Hollywood legend, Billy Wilder,
"If you have a problem with the third act,
"the real problem is in the first act."
So what goes wrong in "Tenet's" first act?
- Brooks Brothers won't cut it.
- I'm assuming I'm on a budget.
- Okay, not that.
- To get anywhere near Sator
would take a fresh-faced protagonist,
and you are fresh as a daisy.
- You know what? I'm just gonna tell you.
The first cardinal sin "Tenet" commits
is not properly setting up its main character
in its opening act.
According to screenwriting guru Robert McKee,
a solidly written character does three primary things.
Number one, intrigues.
A character must naturally hook a viewer.
We don't have to necessarily like them,
but we do want to know more about them.
In the first act of "The Prestige," for example,
we are immediately drawn to the character
of magician Alfred Borden.
Why?
Because we see Borden witness the death of Robert Angier,
a crime he's then unfairly charged with.
- I saw someone making their way below stage.
I followed him.
It was Borden watching Mr. Angier drown.
- [Michael] Number two, convinces.
A well-written character must convince the audience
that they're not fictional entities,
but rather a real-life human being transposed onto a screen.
In "Inception," we totally believe
that Leonardo DiCaprio's character Cobb is real
in large part because he has relatable needs and weaknesses.
In the opening act, we watch Cobb risk at all
to get back to his children,
all the while battling with both grief and guilt
surrounding his dead wife.
- What are you doing here, Dom?
- I think I found a way home.
It's a job for some very, very powerful people,
people who I believe can fix my charges permanently,
but I need your help.
- [Michael] Number three, individualizes.
Through a combination of dialogue and action,
a character must appear unique on screen,
not just from other characters,
but from anything we've ever seen before on film.
In "The Prestige," Borden is a brilliant
and dedicated magician.
And okay, maybe we've seen that before,
but Borden is also a man seemingly divided.
- I love you.
- Not today.
- What?
- Well, some days it's not true,
and today you don't mean it.
Maybe today you're more in love with magic than me.
- [Michael] And that's unique.
But while so many characters of the Nolan-verse
can hit these marks in the first act,
the same can't be said for "Tenet."
For example, it's hard to say what, if anything,
intrigues us about our main character, the Protagonist.
Sure, the film opens with him kicking some ass
and attempting suicide,
inviting us to question what's going to happen next.
But this line of questioning is short-lived
as we're told the character has essentially become
a blank slate.
- You don't work for us. You're dead.
- [Michael] Being a blank slate, it's then hard for the hero
to convince us he's real.
In fact, we never learn anything
about the hero's personal life,
let alone his personal weaknesses or his goals.
All we're told is that he needs to stop some generic
but suitably vague doomsday.
- As I understand it, we're trying to prevent World War III.
- [Michael] And, oh yeah, his beverage of choice.
- Vodka tonic and a Diet Coke.
What?
You never drink on the job.
- [Michael] Now, the film tries to address this
by presenting Sator's wife, Kat,
as a potential love interest,
but the whole thing feels patently inorganic.
I mean, seriously, does anyone believe these two wanna,
you know, Quibi and get busy?
- They'll think we're having an affair.
- Then he'll wanna meet me.
- Or have you killed.
- Let me worry about that.
- Do I look worried?
- Due to this lack of specificity,
our hero fails to individualize and differentiate himself
from the legion of other action stars we've seen.
And yes, some of this seems intentional.
After all, Nolan literally named his hero the Protagonist
in the script.
So it's fair to say that the character is, to some degree,
intentionally a blank slate,
but while other narratives,
like the cyberpunk novel "Snow Crash,"
get away with a dude named Hiro Protagonist
as part of its over-the-top satire,
we're not quite sure if it's working out for Nolan.
Instead, we've got a character who speaks
like he's pulled from a generic '90s film.
- Hey, easy fella.
Where I'm from, you buy me dinner first.
- But there's also a cumulative effect that comes
from not setting up the characters in this first act.
The action sequences begin to fall flat.
You might think that the basis of a good action scene
is tight choreography or mind-bending special effects.
(lightsabers whooshing) (dramatic instrumental music)
But you'd be very, very wrong.
It's a bit like thinking that guac
is the basis of a good burrito.
Important, sure, but you kind of need a tortilla first.
See, more than anything,
a good action scene should demonstrate
and develop character.
The first act of "Inception," for example,
is rife with action scenes that demonstrate this.
Cobb, for example, asks Mal to sit on a chair,
then using her as a weight
repels down the side of the building.
- Why are you doing this?
- Just getting some fresh air.
Stay where you are, Mal.
- [Michael] This scene tells us three things
about our character.
One, that Mal might jeopardize Cobb's mission.
Two, that Cobb trusts Mal with his safety.
And three, that Mal ultimately doesn't care.
She gets up and let's him fall.
But it's not just main characters like Cobb
that are dramatized through the action in "Inception."
Even side characters like Saito shine.
When held at gunpoint with a riotous crowd outside
ready to tear them apart,
we see Saito turn the situation on its head.
- Right now, I'm lying on polyester
which means I'm not lying on my carpet in my apartment.
You have lived up to your reputation, Mr. Cobb.
- Here, even the tenseness moment teaches us
a lot about this character.
He's a level-headed negotiator,
and more importantly, he's smart.
In sharp contrast, "Tenet" fails to use its action scenes
to inform us about its characters,
both in the first act and beyond.
Sure, the opening scene at the opera house shows us
the Protagonist is good at shooting guns and kicking ass,
but that's hardly an illuminating insight
into his psychology.
And you could argue that we're cherry picking here,
but even the larger action sequences
tell us very little about the character.
Just look at the scene where the Protagonist
first encounters the turnstile.
Despite literally fighting himself,
we learn nothing about him.
Instead, the whole encounter seems like an excuse
for Nolan to use some neat choreography.
While this all might seem harmless,
it's compounded by the time we get to the finale.
Unlike "Inception," when a gun is pointed
to a character's head,
we don't learn anything new about them.
- No balls in my throat?
- [Michael] Character doesn't inform action.
Instead, all we get is some nonsensical speech.
- You fight for a cause you barely understand.
- [Michael] But establishing character isn't the only thing
"Tenet" fails to do in its first act.
The film's second major failure is one of world-building,
by which I mean the way a movie establishes its setting
and explains the rules of its world.
Now, normally this is something Nolan excels at.
Consider "Inception."
At the three-minute mark,
the notoriously complex movie states
its central premise clearly and succinctly.
- An idea that is fully formed, fully understood,
that sticks right in there somewhere.
- For someone like you to steal?
- Yes.
In the dream state, your conscious defenses are lowered
and it makes your thoughts vulnerable to theft.
It's called extraction.
- [Michael] In fact, "Inception's" whole first act
is dedicated to explaining key concepts that will play out
in the second and third acts.
We learn how pain and death work in a dream state,
how you can have a dream within a dream,
and finally, how you can plant an idea
in someone's dreaming head.
- What do you want from us?
- Inception.
- [Michael] "Tenet's" first act, on the other hand,
is an infuriatingly cryptic affair
in which neither the conflict nor the rules
are ever made clear.
For starters, we're never told in the first act
what our Protagonist is actually meant to do
or what's at stake if he fails.
- I thought I was here to find out what we do.
- [Michael] Rather, we begin with vague prognostications
about a coming war.
- There's a cold war, cold as ice.
We even know its true nature is to lose.
- [Michael] And by the one-hour mark,
we're still not really sure
what the big bad Sator is trying to do.
- A terrorist bomb, even when that can kill billions,
is nothing compared to what can happen
if you don't stop Sator.
- From doing what?
- We having attack by the future.
- [Michael] And in between anytime someone
tries to get more information, they hear stuff like this.
- Knowledge divided, my friend.
- [Michael] Other characters either respond
with pretentious non sequiturs
or they just outright tell the Protagonist
that not knowing is half the battle.
- Ignorance is our ammunition.
- [Michael] But "Tenet" doesn't just play coy
about the Protagonist's goals.
It's also equally vague about the rules of the world.
Sure, we're told about inverted items
in this fairly unenlightened explanation.
- One of these bullets is like us,
traveling forward through time.
The other one's going backwards.
Can you tell which is which?
- But we don't learn about the loot boxes, the turnstiles,
or what it's like to be inverted
until the second and third acts.
In fact, our hero only learns
that Sator is after parts of the algorithm,
not plutonium-241, in the second act.
And it's only in the third act that we learn
the algorithm can end the world as we know it.
Now, I know what some of you Nolan diehards
might be thinking.
There are multiple good reasons
why the Protagonist isn't told about his mission
and the rules of inversion straight off the bat.
Firstly, any email or text message sent today
might be accessed by the bad guys in the future
who might then tip off Sator about your plans.
- Emails, credit cards, texts,
anything that goes into the record
speaks directly to the future.
- [Michael] Secondly, because you're not sure
who will betray you in the future and what they might know,
it's important to make sure
that no one person knows the full plan.
Again-
- Knowledge divided, my friend.
- Hear that sound?
It's every screenwriter in the world
whispering a reverent (beep) under their breath.
Lastly, and most importantly,
because our characters constantly go back in time,
it's important they don't use their knowledge
of what's to come to change the past.
- What's happened, happened.
- In other words, it's all causal loop.
But while this might make for a cool conversation
over bong rips and Hot Pockets,
it doesn't make for an entertaining movie.
At the end of the day, there's a reason why stories
are generally told in a linear fashion.
It's just plain easier to relate to a character
and invest in their journey if we can follow
the internal logic of the plot.
But "Tenet" purposely makes everything as vague as possible,
all in service of trying to avoid creating any plot holes
or tipping its hand
about everything being one big causal loop.
But instead of being intriguing,
it all comes off as variously generic and scrutable
or just plain stupid.
- I'm the protagonist of this operation.
- You are a protagonist.
- Moreover, you don't need a causal loop
for the film's ending to be set up in its beginning.
According to playwright, screenwriter,
and grumpy old man David Mamet,
"To have the end buried in the beginning
"is the utmost accomplishment of drama."
(gun firing) (man screaming)
Think about "The Prestige."
It starts by explaining the rules of the world
to the audience.
Recall the opening narration
in which Michael Caine's character Cutter
lays out the three steps to any trick.
The pledge, where the magician shows you an ordinary object.
The turn, where the magician turns that object
into something extraordinary.
And the prestige,
where the magician turns the object back to normal.
Importantly though, during this explanation,
Cutter gives the audience one key bit of information
that will unravel the central mystery of the film.
How does Alfred Borden perform his trick
The Disappearing Man?
- Now, you're looking for the secret, but you won't find it
because, of course, you're not really looking.
You don't really wanna know.
(dramatic instrumental music)
(doors clacking) (water splashing)
You want to be fooled.
- [Michael] In short, the film tells us that the answer
will be in front of us the whole time,
we just don't wanna look.
And despite the numerous clues in the first act,
we fail to see that Borden is an identical twin.
- But where's his brother?
- [Michael] The reveal only comes at the end of the film,
after Angier thinks that Borden has been executed.
In the final act, we see the prestige,
the disappearing man reappears.
Now, we think that Nolan was trying to recreate
the same Eureka moment in "Tenet" with the big reveal.
The Protagonist actually created Tenet
and recruited Edward Cullen in the future.
- We get up to some stuff.
- But this realization just doesn't feel very satisfying,
largely because the whole causal loop is achieved
through vague character motivations
and poorly explained world-building about inversion,
which really is the problem with "Tenet" in a nutshell.
The film makes big sacrifices in the first act,
all in order to make the complex story conceit work.
And these shortcomings ultimately doom the final act.
Even if you actually somehow understand what's going on,
chances are you probably don't care very much
about the characters.
But maybe we're being unkind here.
Maybe the only way to make a causal loop work in a script
is to do what Nolan did with "Tenet."
But what do you guys think?
Is "Tenet" annoying and baffling or secretly genius?
Did we totally miss the point?
Yell at us in the comments.
Big thanks to all our patrons for your support.
Punch that subscribe button
like you're the Protagonist fighting himself.
And don't forget to ring that bell.
And as always, thanks for watching.
Later.
(upbeat instrumental music)
Does anyone believe these two want to, you know,
Apple Plus and touch butts?
Paramount Plus and be parents with each other
after having sex?
HBO Max and hit it from the backs?