Review: Tenet

Tenet, directed by Christopher Nolan, tells the tale of Protagonist (John David Washington). Yes, Protagonist, that’s what he’s called DID I STUDDER?! After seemingly committing suicide to avoid torture, Protagonist wakes up completely unharmed and gets hired by a mysterious corporation called Tenet to stop an EVIL Russian oligarch named Andrei Sator (Kenneth Branagh) from basically destroying the world using the power of “time-inversion.”

This is the latest film from writer-director Christopher Nolan and it’s one of the first films to be officially released into theaters since the COVID-19 pandemic began. Despite every other summer blockbuster being either delayed or released digitally, Nolan stood his ground and insisted this film to be shown this year ONLY in theaters. After several months of “will-they-won’t-they?”, Nolan’s Tenet has finally made it to theaters for the world to see.

I took my face mask and sanitizer and braved into the uncharted waters of a movie theater in a COVID-stricken world, picked the most isolated seat possible away from the one or two people that were also crazy enough to watch a movie in a theater during a pandemic in the earliest showtime available, and found this highly anticipated film to be…okay. Tenet is no doubt an exhibition of Nolan’s talent as a visual auteur, featuring some extremely creative action sequences and amazing visuals that can be very much appreciated in a large screen that only the theater can provide, but it’s also a convoluted story that showcases Nolan’s worst habits as a writer.

For everyone’s sake I will avoid spoilers for this film in this review, but I do feel your enjoyment of this film will rely heavily on how much you’re able to buy and understand this film’s world. Nolan spends a huge amount of time, almost the entire first half of this two and a half hour movie, explaining the science of the film’s featured sci-fi concept: “time-inversion.” Basically it’s a concept that involves you essentially making a U-turn on the current timeline; you move through time forward normally, then you flip the switch on time making literally everything go in reverse. Through time-inversion, you’re essentially going backwards in time in the literal sense. At least that’s how I interpret it, I don’t know maybe it’s something else entirely and my primitive caveman brain can’t comprehend the sheer weight of Nolan’s genius.

And hear lies my main issue with this film and quite frankly all of Nolan’s films since Inception: Nolan’s movies are nothing but plot. A lot of Nolan’s films feel more like two and a half hour lectures on strange sci-fi concepts than actual films, and this is another one to add on the list. All the characters in this film have, well, no character; they are all merely vessels of meat used to detail some handy exposition and forward the plot. Sure you can have your characters be played by charismatic actors like John David Washington and Robert Pattinson, but they can only do so much with dialogue that only describe plot and do nothing about making these characters interesting. Being witty does not equal being interesting.

We don’t get a sense of who these characters are or why we should care about whether they live or die. Hell the main character is literally called Protagonist. He’s a blank slate that we’re all suppose to identify with and root for. It’s hard for me to be invested in a character that has as much complexion as a blank sheet of paper. We can’t even follow clearly the plot these characters are spewing because the sound mixing for this film is pretty awful. Lines of dialogue are either muffled because a character’s wearing a mask over his or her face or they’re drowned out by the film’s overbearing score and sound design. We can’t follow a film that is heavily plot centered when the film’s plot is not even audible at times.

But even though it’s overbearing the film’s score is still pretty good. Ludwig Göransson fills in for Nolan’s usual composer Hans Zimmer, who was unavailable for this film’s production, and Göransson’s score is very unique and helps propel the film forward. The cast was overall great; as I mentioned earlier, both Washington and Pattinson were charismatic in their roles, Elizabeth Debicki gives another great performance, and Kenneth Branagh gives just the right amount of ham and cheese as the film’s antagonist (though it’s a shame his character wasn’t called “Antagonist”). The film’s visual and practical effects were impressively mind-boggling as you would come to expect from Nolan, Hoyte van Hoytema’s cinematography was on point, and it very well complimented the film’s incredibly epic and unique action sequences.

Overall this is a bonafide Nolan film, for better or for worse; the film boasts some amazing visuals but at the expense of memorable characters. If there’s a drive-in theater near you that’s showing this film then by all means check it out there and see for yourself, otherwise I’d probably wait a bit and see this at home with subtitles so I can understand what the heck is going on. It’s an ambitious idea, but it’s not something I feel like I would remember long after. You’re better than this Nolan, do better.

Final Verdict: 5/10