It is time travel but it's also kind of different. Basically there's two parallel flows of time, one going forwards (our reality) and one going backwards - which starts happening as soon as you enter the time machine. To be clear backwards time still feels like it moves forwards for the protagonist, but he's moving into the past and what he does in this time reversal affects the past & thereby current time/the future.
Visually it's extra confusing because you see both forward and backward time play out at the same time in the same frames while it feels like things 'move forward' from both perspectives. But for people in the current time those who move in the past appear as though they're going backwards. There's also added layers of confusion in how time travelling objects work or how people moving forward into the past are affected by their surroundings.
I thought it was neat and well executed. I think the negative reviews are more because it's convoluted by design and hard to wrap your head around. Not a very suitable movie for the general public really. But it's nice that Nolan takes the big hollywood $$ and just does what he wants with it, pushing it into a project that normally wouldn't leave small scale arthouse cinema.
After this I do wonder if he still has any more time manipulation up his sleeve. From memory loss, to blackholes, dream-reality, to straight up time travel - he's done most of it now. I want to see him do something else.
Last edited by Larssen (2021-02-21 08:07:34)