Tenet (2020) – Rant
Allowing two objects (or persons) to have a different arrow of time and to cohexist in the same consistent timeline is impossible even just theoretically. It’s not sci-fi and not even magic, it’s simply something that doesn’t work.
Because light travels normally, the inverted persons shouldn’t be able to see. Damages like bullet holes in the movie occur some minutes/hours before the event, and in inverted time they decay/annihilate. This, however, makes zero sense, both in forward and inverted time, of course, so suspension of disbelief is the only way for preexisting holes to work. The fight of the protagonist against himself that happens to “repeat” perfectly even though he already lived it previously (and so he can remember about it), is another stupid thing, because he could do plenty of different actions that differs from before. Without not even mentioning the fact that you are supposed to press the trigger at the right time and point the gun at the exact perfect angle in order for the bullet to re-enter.
You could write an essay by listing everything wrong with the movie, but you can sum it up with a dialogue from the film itself: «Don’t try to understand it. Feel it.» That is, the movie is just stupid, and “Primer” (2004) is an example of time reversal done right, which is sci-fi but has some respect for logic at least. Yet another example where independent moviemakers with less budget can sometimes make better movies.
And time-things aside, the movie moves so quick, one setting after another, with the protagonist talking to various characters, that you can’t understand shit and it looks like a parody; it’s supposed to be a movie, not TikTok scrolling.