I liked it less than Inception, which I liked a lot less than the Batman movies and The Prestige. Overall, I really enjoyed Pattison and it really makes me excited to see him in The Batman. I'm sure he's had to dig deep to gt past the Vampire/Diggory box, so good for him for really being cool to watch on screen.
Kenneth Branagh has to be one the short list of most underrated actors of our time, at least in the US, I imagine he's giant in the UK.
The end twist I thought was not that hard to see coming given how much discussion of forwards and backwards there was. Branagh's motivation was tough for me to accept, but that's sort of my issue not the movie's. When you finally let us in on the big secret and it's not this mind-blowing thing for you personally, it makes the rest of the film not quite as power-packed as it could have been.
I never got tired of the action scenes, which did happen to be in Inception during the great ski chase extravaganza. There aren't a lot of movies that come along that really have you struggling to understand what your eyes are telling you - watching everyday things move in reverse and forwards at the same time is a challenge to the mind - at least my old one - I'd put the "newness" of the effects of Tenet on par with the way I felt after seeing the Matrix or Jurassic Park for the first time.
I liked the protgaonist because I've never seen that guy before and a new person in a huge role really makes it easy to believe in them. By the same token, when Michael Caine rolls up in a Nolan movie, it's pretty hard to believe in his character because he's in every Nolan movie. I loved him in Batman and in the Prestige and I love the loyalty factor but it stretches things a bit. Also it took me the entire movie to figure out that actress playing Barbara was Fleur Decour from the Harry Potter series. Two of the four Tri-Wizard Tournament champions in the same film! I kept hoping against hope that Victor Krum would come strolling in.
I'm sure many will tell me I need to see it on the big screen with all the high-def whatevers, but that's just not realistic for me at this point. The computer monitor with multiple pauses and rewatches still left me with a million questions. Like the previous poster said, I'm sure watching with the closed captions on would greatly have enhanced my ability to know WTF was going on in many circumstances. It was interesting, but I don't find myself ga-ga to watch it again; which is pretty much how I felt about inception; I don't think I've seen it since I saw in the movie theater. Regardless of my opinion, it's great to have new movies back in the theater.