Tenet

This review may contain spoilers!

This has taken the spot of my least favourite Christopher Nolan film for sure. I would give Tenet a 6/10.

Tenet is a sci-fi thriller that follows the exploits of the 'Protagonist' and the shadow organisation that recruits him as they attempt to stop a future World War before it transpires. This is a feature that has quite a few facets to it and the ones that work well are far more remarkable than the ones that don't. Specifically this film has a strong emphasis on being an espionage-type thriller which really brings a fine level of intrigue to the piece. The cloak and daggers game of trust and betrayal between the Protagonist and the film's antagonist, Andrei Sator, is quite gripping to watch. The Protagonist plays a game of infiltration and is equally capable at talking or punching his way out of a crisis. Yet the conflict is heightened by an antagonist who seems to have a more calculating intellect and makes use of his vast pools of resources to keep his edge for almost the entire narrative. Deeper than this main running espionage story is a more personal conflict between Andrei and his wife, Kat. This was a really gripping personal drama in which Kat has become trapped in her own life, blackmail and threats have tied her forever to her husband and the film does a great job of exploring their entwined struggle and her efforts to escape. The cinematography for this feature is the incredibly polished high-grade style we've come to expect from a Nolan feature; this movie feels sharp and the camerawork flaunts the expensive sets and set-up that go into crafting a blockbuster of this scale. The score for the film is very gripping and terribly foreboding; the intense atmosphere set by the music is guaranteed to have you on the edge of your seat in a few key scenes.

Kenneth Branagh, who played Andrei Sator, provies once again why he's one of the best performer out there as the antagonist for this feature; Branagh's extreme burst of passionate rage coupled with the devilish cunning he brings are absolutely terrifying to watch. Michael Caine, who played Michael Crosby, is a firm staple of Nolan's filmography for a very good reason, Caine is very effective as the smug, yet proficient upper class businessman. Martin Donovan, who played Victor, is one of the few performers who actually handles exposition really well; Donovan has this delivery that leaves you with a sense of foreboding of what's to come.

However, the best performance came from Elizabeth Debicki, who played Kat. This role was so completely engaging to me because in a film with time anomalies and guns that catch bullets we had an incredible female protagonist fighting to escape the trap her life had become. Debicki is all class from the moment she arrives on-screen, she has this easy sophistication about her that makes you see her as being comfortable within her life of luxury. Yet as we come to see her more within the film you see the terror she lives with, her fear and intense reactions to Branagh are absolutely staggering. All throughout the feature you watch this woman rebuild herself, from being terrified of her husband to becoming the retribution against him. Debicki probably has the most satisfying and fulfilling character arc to come from Tenet and while I didn't know it at the time, she was why I paid the price of admission.

Christopher Nolan is an incredibly intelligent man with the capacity for killer screen writing, but even a great writer/director slips. Earlier I mentioned the many facets of Tenet and this was a pretty important statement, Tenet is a very busy beast of a feature with a number of plots relying upon one another to make the whole. Unfortunately, the selling point for the film, the sci-fi time element, is one of the film's worst aspects. The writing for the various time theories feels like it was written by someone with a very surface-level understanding of the core concept applying said theories to a narrative that doesn't really bring out their strengths. The movie backtracks and contradicts itself constantly in order to set-up a plot twist or introduce a new time theory to discuss. When we started talking about the Grandfather Paradox or the Protagonist survives a car explosion because he's 'inverted' you have to start wondering if Nolan knows what he's talking about. The film pushes the obvious time travel plot twists of future selves interacting with past selves or current selves going off to die because it was foreshadowed earlier in the film. This is a movie that constantly tries to pass itself off as rather clever while unashamedly utilising all the worst qualities of a time travel blockbuster film. The dialogue for the movie is also remarkably poor, with empty philosophical statements, long drawn out exposition and hastily delivered quips that seem very out of place. The special effects style for the film is also pretty terrible, the way inversion is presented is by no means appealing to the eye and might be the worst looking effects work I've seen in such a high calibre film.

Robert Pattinson, who played Neil, just kind of inexplicably shows up near the end of Act One and proceeds to stage whisper every single line he has in the film; Pattinson doesn't really push a lot of emotion or effort into his character which makes him rather dull to watch. John David Washington, who played the Protagonist, starts off the film with a good footing but grows steadily monotonous as the film goes along; Washington has little to no range opting to coolly throw out a one-liner or uncertainly ask questions as opposed to feeling like anything resembling a character. Aaron Taylor-Johnson, who played Ives, enters the film out of nowhere spouting some of the most nonsensical dialogue thus far; Taylor-Johnson's tough military persona just feels generic and shunts him right into the background. Clemence Poesy, who played Laura, seems completely drained of energy; Poesy has some of the most important exposition to deliver but she feels tired and deflated to listen to. Himesh Patel, who played Mahir, comes across as more of a comedic role which really clashes with the overall tone the film is going for; Patel is like a piece that just does not fit in the big action sequences. Dimple Kapadia, who played Priya, does not have very clear line delivery and really suffers as the one who seems to be the most clued into what is going on; her cryptic yet wise delivery feels pretty played out and she is consistently in some of the most boring scenes in the film.