This is still my least favorite Nolan's film. Yeah! I said it.
(Well, excluding Dark Knight Rises which I don't even consider a Nolan film to be completely honest, that's like a Michael Bay film in my eyes, no offense).
I absolutely love their work (yes, "their", I'm giving credit to Johnathan too)
If you ask me about my favorite top 10 movies of all time,
3 of them are Nolan's (The Prestige, Inception, Memento) - which means a lot,
and if you ask me about my top 20 - Dark Knight and Interstellar will be on that list too, so that's 5 Nolan movies in my top 20, OF ALL TIME.
That's 25% of the list.
Anyways, your intelligence has nothing to do with it, don't worry, Tenet simply requires a 2nd watch, as in, it's literally a must.
Having said that, although the 2nd watch did make me like the movie more, and I do believe I understand the concept well and the complexity behind it, including some little details I have noticed and missed on my 1st watch -
This is still not even close to that top 20 list.
The ride is fun, but even on the 2nd watch you don't know where you're riding to and why and that's due to the lack of ->
a better backstory, better character development and better dialogs -
because it's like all of their mind went into polishing the concept itself,
leaving all of the abovementioned aspects behind.
I gave it a generous 7/10 for the idea behind the film and because I cannot say it wasn't entertaining, it's just not on par with most of their other work.
Edit: Also I have to say, Ludwig's score was top-notch, BUT, there were moments where the music was literally too cool for the scene. As in, "nothing spectacular happened that moment, why is the score so good and intense right now?". I know it's a silly statement but that's my opinion, it was just off-putting.
