Tenet - Movie Review

Christopher Nolan has made a name for himself in the world of film, directing films that have stuck themselves into pop culture including The Dark Knight and Inception. He keeps his films both grounded in reality while pushing the limits to what's possible, blending both concepts together to create some very impressive films. Nolan is a director with a vivid imagination who's able to keep audiences interested by keeping things relatable. Now after years of working on it and after multiple delays his newest film has hit theaters and broadcast programming: Tenet.

Tenet is about a man who, after encountering a man who seems to be able to "un-fire" bullets from his gun, is pulled into a world of espionage involving a secret organization called Tenet. His involvement brings him in contact with a CIA handler, an arms trafficker, and an estranged woman, all while pulled into a plot that might involve something greater than the end of the world. Normally I would explain more of the story, but I would either be getting into spoilers or start saying techno-babble that would make your head spin because the plot of Tenet is weird. Very weird and at times confusing. I will have to say a few things that might be spoiling some moments, but if I am I'm going to try and not say too much. You have been warned.

Now I did start praising Christopher Nolan at the start of this review, but Tenet is kind of Nolan at his best and his worst. Nolan is exceptional with his imagery, cinematography, and visual editing, while his story, characters, and sound editing suffer in exchange. It's one of the reasons why I didn't see movies like Interstellar and Dunkirk; while I can approve of strong visuals I would rather have a strong story and characters and those films people seemed to mostly praise on the visual level. That doesn't mean these films are bad, I have not watched them so I cannot say they are. But I don't know if I would be interested in seeing them if the enjoyment I'm supposed to get out of them is mostly visual. So right now I'm going to start by talking about the negatives of the movies because the positives are definitely there and are noteworthy and I don't want to end on a sour note.

First off are the characters. I didn't get much motivation to care about any of them much. The main character never even gets a name in the whole film, he's just called "The Protagonist," even in the credits. He's basically just somebody to push the story along. Now I'm not saying John David Washington's acting was bad because it wasn't and he had some really good action scenes, but there's no personal motivation or goal for him relating to the plot of the movie so I can see people being very bored of him. Robert Pattinson is also in the film as the handler, Neil, and he was definitely the best actor and character in the film because he felt deeper, had more personality, and there was something else that was just intriguing about him. Other than those two though the rest of cast was... not boring, but not very memorable. The villain and his wife especially were not very interesting.

After that is the story. Nolan's science fiction films like Inception and Interstellar are visually amazing, but I barely hear anything about how great their stories are. That's because they're kind of messy and there's a lot of explaining throughout them. That can be executed correctly in other films, but it can be a struggle in some Christopher Nolan movies. We got that with Tenet because a lot seems very vague at first or barely talked about. The organization, Tenet, is barely talked about throughout the film, there are a ton of subplots that are kind of a checklist that feels weird and out of place, and the I almost got lost at certain points of the film because they didn't blend well. One of the biggest ones involving a painting and I kept on wonder what was the point of this subplot.

Over half way through the film though the story picks up a lot and I became a lot more interested. At this point we finally know how this scientific theory throughout the film called "Inversion" works (which I will explain in a bit), what the goal of our villain is, how to stop him, and the consequences if the heroes fail to do so. It just becomes a lot better and we have a clearer, more understandable story on our hands. That, combined with an awesome action set-piece that I'll get into later, kept me attentive to what was happening on the screen. Now the ending was a little weird, but I could accept it and I give it a good pass. Still, to take over half the film to get to the story rolling properly is a problem.

And then there is the sound editing. I was hoping it was just me while I was watching it, but the sound editing in Tenet, like some of Nolan's other films, is problematic. There were multiple times I couldn't hear the characters speaking because of the background audio. Again, I was hoping it was just me and my weird ears, but I've read that I wasn't the only one with this problem. This happened quite a bit, especially during moments where important dialogue was being said, which can cripple a viewers understanding and interest in a movie. If I don't know what's being said at important moments in the movie I'm not going to get what's going to happen later.

But enough negatives, it's time for some positivity because there's some really good elements to this film as well. First off is the the visuals. Like previous Nolan films it is exceptional in Tenet. There are multiple scenes throughout the movie seem to be running forward and backward in time as the same moment, like a car chase or a fist fight and it's insane and cool. I was continually impressed by how beautiful the film looked, especially in the second half where the use of time going forward and backwards is taken to a whole new level. For instance, and this is what me decide to go see the film, there's a moment in the movie where a building is both exploding and reforming itself and I was just amazed by that scene.

This ties in with how much I love the imagery in this movie. As mentioned before Nolan doesn't like just going big with his movies, he wants them to stand out. Inception worked with dreams, Interstellar with space, and now Tenet is working with time. How Nolan is able to explain how its used throughout the movie feels very science fiction, yet believable and grounded in reality. It was confusing at first because it was such an odd concept, but the basics were understandable to me and that ideas that this concept could bring about is endless. Time is a very hard concept to work with in film and even the better films that deal with time travel like Back to the Future or Avengers: End Game often brush it off as not entirely serious or with a couple of loopholes.

And lastly is the cinematography. To me really good cinematography is when you can pause the film at any point and that still can be hung up on a frame. I got that with Tenet because the camera, even in fight scenes, felt smooth and captured a lot of what was on screen. In terms of the visual elements I wasn't lost or scratching my head thinking, "Wait, what just happened?" I mean the grandeur of some moments made me wonder what was going on, but I could tell what was going on because I could tell what was happening on the screen. There's a car chase scene half way through that blew me away because the camera was able to go places and shots were blended together so well that my eyes couldn't move away. It's really damn good.

Tenet, as a whole, is a weird film. I would say it's worth a watch if you're a curious mind, but be careful as the story can be confusing and the characters could be developed better. The visuals are fantastic and the imagery is, like many Nolan films, very creative and thought provoking. I had a fun time with Tenet and I can encourage you to see it just to say you have.

Tentative Score: 7/10

Definitive Score: 7/10

One thing I must praise though is Ludwig Göransson as the composer. I think this guy might be the next John Williams because he is so talented, yet so young! Creed, Black Panther, The Mandalorian, now Tenet. This guy has mad talent.