Christopher Nolan, maestro of smart blockbusters, is back to turn back the clock and deliver a new film as the film industry desperately hopes to return to before COVID-19 closed theaters. Fittingly, the film is based on breathtaking eyes Time bend. But is Tenet in the wrong place at the wrong time?
The film begins in a crowded theater, an incongruous sight that occurred in the time of the Coronavirus pandemic. Coincidentally, the characters also spend a lot of time wearing respirators, which feels appropriate given that many viewers wear masks too - for 2 hours and 30 minutes. Covering the faces of the stars doesn't exactly help you keep track of the story as it is difficult enough to keep track of the complex plot, even if you can see everyone's face.
But that's just the little things. The big question is is it safe to go to the movies and that depends on where you are. Like all film buffs, you might want to give a boost to the cinema, and the film industry is betting heavily on Tenet as the only remaining summer blockbuster with a chance to send viewers back to desperate cinemas. But even the most complicated choreographed action scene is not worth risking your health.
Tenet opened internationally on August 26th and in the US on September 3rd (How to avoid online spoilers). The good news is that the movie was machine made to view in a variety of formats. When you see it on the big screen, you get a glimpse of the spectacle, or you can wait for streaming and television to appear with the help of subtitles. And a notebook. And several long Reddit threads.
John David Washington is insanely observable staggering from one fight to the next, doing pull-ups that dangle over sheer drops, and going through more outfits than a model in an issue of Esquire. He's the Black James Bond of this shady world, barely wrinkling his three-piece suit when he pulls out ball-headed Russian mercenaries with all the kitchen utensils at hand. He's not the guy they send to negotiate, but he's the guy they send to get things done and look good doing it.
Speaking of 007, the Shadows of other superspies inevitably hangs over Tenet. Tenet's storyline is a globetrotter adventure filled with beautiful people doing ugly things. It's based on the classic Bond movie formula with a shot of Thunderball here, a bolt of lightning from The Man With the Golden Gun, and a set of Skyfall. But Nolan does it with so much vigor that the real James Bond has a fight on his hands when he returns in No Time to Die in November.
To any other director, Tenet may feel like an audition for the famous spy franchise, but Dr. No-Lan doesn't have to prove that he can make a Bond film. Instead, he has proven that there is nothing like a Christopher Nolan film. When it comes to smart and spectacular blockbusters with a sci-fi twist, nobody does it better. Which means that Nolan set a high bar for himself and Tenet has to stretch to improve on the very similar Inception.
Yes, Tenet is pretty complicated. Before everything becomes time-consuming, you have to make an effort to keep track (see our) spoiler-heavy guide to the end and answers to all your WTF questions). The mission begins with a subplot about counterfeiting of art, where mostly people sit in dimly lit dining rooms, handling endless names and geopolitical complexities over their Michelin-starred meals. Let's call it lunch position. We never get to know exactly what Michael Caine ordered at the restaurant during his cameo, but when he chews through a barely understandable speech about secret Soviet cities, you realize it was probably the word salad.
If you don't remember all the details, however, don't worry. There's a good guy and a bad guy and woman caught between them and one thing everyone wants before it destroys the world. The rest is just beautiful to look at. But that's pretty much all.
The handsome cast may scorch the screen with their star presence, but they don't have much else to do. The finely tailored outfits and gnomish one-liners don't hide much depth, which is a problem as the maturity goes by and you're stuck with no great emotional connection to these people.
Needless to say, Nolan's lack of interest in depicting three-dimensional people when he can play around with noticeable time changes instead, but that's Tenet's biggest problem. Nolan's tendency to create cinematic ciphers instead of characters came to a head in Dunkirk, where he deliberately didn't tell us about the characters and instead used his filmmaking skills to place you in their dire situation. Those blank signs gave Dunkirk an element of "What would you do?" but that was a real war story; You don't get the same viewer identification with a flashy action film about bespoke time travelers.
That means the effects-based time twisting gimmick has to do all the heavy lifting. And the fact is, Tenet's time-consuming imagination just isn't as gripping as Gina Gina from Nolan's earlier clever blockbuster Inception.
Unfortunately, similarities with Inception go hand in hand with falling returns.
Unfortunately, similarities with Inception go hand in hand with falling returns. If The Dark Knight Rises The Dark Knight just wasn't that good, then Tenet Inception just isn't that good, basically. This 2010 blockbuster's dreamscapes had layers and rules that built nerve-wracking tension and enabled breathtaking innovations, like the famous scene where a hotel goes into free fall and a fight sequence literally climbs the walls.
Tenet doesn't hit that wow factor, maybe because the rules and limitations of the gimmick aren't that clearly defined. For example, the first time-based fight scene is exciting, but it's not entirely clear who's doing what or how the fighters can apply the different rules of the world to do cool things that you won't see anywhere else. And without giving too much away, the time-consuming gimmick increases the tension in crucial moments. It could lead to a discussion of inevitability and free will, but you don't want to feel like the characters are going through the moves.
John David Washington is the man of the hour and Nolan has constructed another thriller with the precision of a Swiss watch. But if you're not ready to hit the theaters again, you have all the time in the world to see Tenet elsewhere.