Tenet Reviews

(OK) Nolanesque affected pure action false philosophy of future conspirating in present with Kenneth Branagh as the villain with more character than the protagonist. Clemence Poesy is chic model...

I already saw this movie in the movie theater when it was released but, since I'm a huge fan of Christopher Nolan, I was quite eager to check it out again. Well, unfortunately, even after rewatching it a few years later, the damned thing was still an incomprehensible mess, I'm afraid. I remember very well the first time I saw it though. Indeed, like so many film buffs, I have been closely following Christopher Nolan's career for years and, once again, this new directing effort was my highest priority for 2020. On top of that, because of the Coronavirus, even though the movie was completed, it kept getting postponed increasing my expectations in the process but also for everyone else. Well, I wish I could say it was worth the wait, as it is usually the case with this director. Unfortunately, I'm afraid Nolan had delivered the first misfire in an otherwise pretty much flawless career so far. The saddest thing is that it was, according to Nolan, his most ambitious movie so far. Anyway, what went wrong? Well, for me, it felt as if they gave permission to David Lynch to direct a blockbuster with a 200 million dollar budget. The difference would be that Lynch would probably deliver something just as weird, bonkers and nonsensical as Nolan did but, at least, it would have been on purpose. I mean, it is not as if Nolan was working for the first time with a rather far out concept. However, the question I kept asking myself was 'was it really such an awesome idea?'. Well, I'm not so sure. I mean, for more than 2 hours, the viewers and the characters struggle with the dammed idea but it never became really fascinating. To make things worse, every 5 mins, they would add another completely random piece of information making the damned thing even more confusing. For example, why would they need some oxigen? Of course, it was explained but what was the added value? Same thing with the inverted objects. Who cares and what did it actually have to do with the plot? Concerning the cast, this time, Nolan didn't have so many characters to deal with which was probably a good thing. However, if John David Washington and Robert Pattinson were both pretty good and had some good chemistry, unfortunately, their characters were barely developed whatsoever. Eventually, was it really some complete garbage? Of course, not. The time passed by very quickly, the soundtrack was badass, it was visually still impressive and it felt good to go back to the movie theatre after almost 6 months but there is no doubt that the damned thing was seriously disappointing. Anyway, to conclude, I actually think that my rating might be actually too high but I give Nolan a few extra points for at least trying to deliver something original but you should probably lower your expectations before watching the damned thing.