Last watched:
The Tower [2012, South Korea]
It's one of those disaster films where an accident happens in a luxurious skyscraper during a Christmas eve party due to poor safety measures. I had to watch it in two takes because it got somewhat boring right after the middle.
The accident:
During Christmas eve, two helicopters fly dangerously close to the twin skyscrapers to shoot fireworks for a Christmas party being held on floor ~63. Each helicopter was carrying a metal box, presumably where the fireworks were. Due to heavy winds one of the helicopters crashes into the skyscraper. The helicopter starts to burn, and the fire spreads down the building. The sprinkler system fails because the piping to floor 60-80 was frozen.
First arc:
Putting out the fire. Some firefighters die
Second arc:
Evacuating the few survivors that could make it out. Many, many civilians died.
Ratings
IMDb: 6.6/10
Rotten Tomatoes: 17%
FilmAffinity: 5.9/10
I was surprised to see that Rotten Tomatoes had this rated so low, and I personally don't think it warrants a 17% rating. I think the FilmAffinity rating is the most accurate. It was "meh" but not entirely awful. It was also one of the highest-grossing films in South Korea for a while, and it's still top ~75. I would put it around a 5.0/10.
Cliches:
Young daughter wingwomans for her father (male lead, a single parent) so he can get with the female lead
Firefighter has wife waiting for him at home but you know he's totally going to die cliche
Management making poor safety decisions
Gotta save the life of a wealthy politician and his ahole wife cliche (also, the boss of the firefighters is clearly corrupt af)
Other thoughts:
I have no civil engineering background at all (different type of engineer), but in a few scenes I thought "that's not how physics works." There's a scene where the characters fall to one of those building things on the exterior that people use to clean windows or lift things (
like this), and they swing like a pendulum to re-enter the building. However, as people jump into the building the platform should be pushed outward with a stronger force (conservation of momentum), which is not shown in the movie. There's another scene where one of the firefighters opens up windows so the flames can have somewhere to go... but I don't think that's how entropy works, either. If anything, according to
Insider breaking a window only causes the fire to develop and grow stronger. You can't "redirect" a flame like that.
Tenet:
Watched it yesterday with friends here in the cinema.
Have to say it's a visual great and big movie, but story wise pretty standard and characters were not developed and poorly written.
Amazing and big respect how Nolan kept the action going. It's definitely not a masterpiece, but a damn fine action movie. Not his best. Expected it to have a finer and well thought out plot. Perhaps missed a few things, so a re-watch will most likely happen when on BluRay.
-Postive-
Visuals [very impressive as usual, no bland CGI]
Music [Not Zimmer this time, which is in my opinion a good thing]
Action [High tempo, only one dull moment I can remember]
-Negative-
"Weak" standard plot [Could have been so much better, did Nolan really write this himself?]
Poorly written characters [especially the 'bad' guy and the female lead, the male lead was just "OK"]
8.0 / 10
I've only vaguely heard of this movie, but I appreciate the detailed review; it motivated me to write mine. From the looks of it, Tenet is a good movie (if a bit flawed), and it shows in the ratings: 8.2/10 IMDb, 84% Rotten Tomatoes, and 71% Metracritic. At 2 hrs and 30 minutes of duration, though, I wonder why the plot and characters appeared so weak.