Seen a lot more of 2020's movies since I originally watched this, this is still one of my favorites from last year. Not difficult to understand what's going on in the slightest.
I feel pretty convinced at this point that most of the “it doesn’t make sense & I hate it” crowd don’t actually hate it for that reason. In trying to talk through that point, it often seems to fall back on some variation of “I don’t care, it was boring anyways,” which is fair but not the same thing. Personally, I found it to be a super engaging ride, minus some critiques here & there (the handling of Kat being the biggest; women continue to be a big problem for Nolan). But, I understand how someone with different tastes wouldn’t click with it.
Yeah, looking back on the movie now, it doesn't seem like it was overly confusing, more that the story wasn't engaging enough to get me to want to put the little bit of effort into thinking it through and figuring out exactly how things work. I feel like I had a basic grasp of what was going on right up until the climactic battle (then I had no fucking clue). This all sounds more harsh than I feel though and I did actually enjoy the movie a lot. There is a ton to enjoy about this movie. The leads are absolutely phenomenal. I am hard of hearing though and the subtitles are an absolute must. That stylistic choice by Nolan that he has now doubled and tripled and quadrupled down on is kind of a dick move for people with hearing problems. It's not like he makes naturalistic mumblecore indies or anything - he makes big loud epic action flicks with bombastic scores. The choice to bury the dialogue so low in the mix so it seems 'natural' or whatever while there is also a BWAMMING score bellowing into my eardrums every few minutes continues to be kinda baffling to me. Minor quibble though really, and subtitles solve the problem perfectly.
The mechanics of inversion were kind of confusing, but the concept itself and the plot weren't that hard to follow for me. I watched with subtitles, but I didn't have an issue with the sound mix. My biggest issue with this was that it was so emotionally dry. Still a ton of fun and my favorite movie of last year.
I mean sure, I guess that’s not the only reason I hated it. The insane rapid fire editing that leaves you no time to process any of the visual spectacle, nothingburger performances basically across the board (even RobPatt, who is visibly pretending to understand what’s going on), Kenneth Branagh’s generic ass cartoony villain, and Nolan’s aforementioned treatment of women characters. Those things, along with me having no idea why a building explodes, un-explodes, and then explodes again, are plenty reason enough for me to not like this movie, imo
Glad I didn’t pay to rent it after seeing it this summer. It’ll be interesting to watch with subtitles but I still think this sucked shit.