Watching Tenet is like playing a game of chess. Except you’re playing it in reverse. And halfway through you’re told it’s not chess. And someone starts explaining completely different rules, that you’ve never heard of, but explains them in a way that they seem to think is obvious and you’re too embarrassed to do anything but nod. You will not understand Tenet the first time you see it. There is simply too much to process in such little time. At one stage the protagonist is told to try not to think about the contorted time-travel concepts being thrown at him. That’s a bit harder for the audience; when almost the entire movie feels like a vomit of exposition about what is going on and why.