- "
Tenet " isChristopher Nolan 's latest movie. - It's about an intelligence agent tasked with saving the world from a villain with time-inverting technology.
- While it's a technical marvel, the movie is too confusing to keep up with and leaves you feeling uninvested in the stakes.
- The film, with a generic Russian villain, is also surprisingly dull and not as special as Nolan's past masterpieces like "Inception" and "Interstellar."
- "Tenet," which stars
John David Washington andRobert Pattinson , is worth watching on the big screen, however, and may benefit from repeat viewings.
Christoper Nolan's new movie "Tenet" will likely drag cinema-lovers back into movie theaters for the first time since February. On paper, there's probably not a better movie to get you back in front of a theater screen.
Nolan's movie is the sort of big, bombastic spectacle we have come to expect from the master filmmaker. And this one stands with the likes of "The Dark Knight," "Inception," and "Interstellar," to name just three.
"Tenet" stars John David Washington as an intelligence agent tasked with saving the world as he goes on a mission that will challenge your conceptions of what time is and how time works.
If that sounds confusing, it is. And the movie does little to clear up the potential headache of that synopsis, which is ultimately one of the film's undoings.
Why you should care: It's a Christopher Nolan movie
Christoper Nolan has never made a bad movie. From 1998's "Following" to 2008's "The Dark Knight" to his previous movie, 2017's "Dunkirk," every one of Nolan's films has been a triumph of movie-making, the definition of event cinema.
This one ticks all the boxes of a trademark Nolan film, too — a cool and charismatic leading man embarks on a mind-bending mission in a high-concept plot that features huge spectacle, excellent cinematography and visual effects, and a supporting cast of stellar actors. Oh, and Michael Caine, of course.
This is also the sort of film that begs to be seen on the big screen. I saw it at the BFI Imax screen in London, the UK's biggest cinema screen. It's a monster of a film to digest and pure spectacle. The real-life stunt of blowing up that Boeing-747 is just one of many impressively made set pieces littered throughout the film.
If you feel comfortable enough to go to a theater, you should definitely see it on a big screen and not wait around to watch it on your TV or laptop.
What's hot: John David Washington and Robert Pattinson excel as charismatic action stars in a movie full of ambition and spectacle
After starring in Spike Lee's Oscar-winning "BlacKkKlansman," Washington hardly had anything to prove. But here, he stars as what is best-described as Nolan's version of James Bond and excels at doing so. He is cool, stylish, physical, and endlessly-watchable.
However, he is outshone by Robert Pattinson. Pattinson gives another great performance and injects a huge amount of quirk, charisma, and English charm into what could have been the sidekick role. Pattinson is the best thing about the movie, bringing much-needed levity and humor. When he is not on screen, the movie doesn't feel half as fun or entertaining.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth Debicki is in fine form, too. She isn't given as much to do as Washington or Pattinson, but it is clear that Nolan has tried to give her character more than another damsel-in-distress role. She has agency, at least, though her relationship with her son, a crucial plot point, feels curiously underdeveloped.
Washington and Pattinson embark on a mission that covers multiple countries and a heck of a lot of set-pieces. Nolan's films always manage to pull off real-life stunts captured by virtuoso cinematography, and it's the same here. The fight-scenes, car, chases, and action sequences are all expertly filmed and edited together. It's impressive filmmaking, technique-wise, and is a brand of filmmaking only Nolan seems capable of.
Without giving too much away, and avoiding all spoilers, "Tenet" is a palindrome, meaning you will see certain scenes in the movie more than once and from different perspectives. It's these sequences that are so genius — you certainly won't have seen anything like it before as half of the action unfolds forwards and the other half backwards. You'll want to see it again to try and work out just how Nolan and his team did it.
What's Not: It's confusing, and is overly focused on its high-concept premise
"Don't try to understand it, just feel it," says Clémence Poésy to Washington during one of the many exposition-heavy scenes in this movie. That's probably some good advice for audience members, too. I spent a lot of this movie trying to figure out what exactly was going on.
It wasn't cohesive, and it felt as if the film was content with the knowledge that most of its audience won't understand it, which was maddening. The movie is aware that it deals with very confusing stuff, but doesn't really want to explain any of it in a way that will make it digestible to the audience. And that just created a barrier that prevented me from truly enjoying the movie. I didn't feel in on the action.
But even when the movie does try to explain some of it through its exposition-heavy scenes, it feels labored — whereas, say, the exposition scenes in "Inception" felt gripping, exciting, and world-building. Indeed, while I found "Inception" and even "Interstellar" easy to keep up with, I felt lost and uninvolved for the majority of this film.
The movie tries to tell you to just enjoy the journey rather than worrying about the mechanics of the film's central idea, but the problem was that the journey itself was surprisingly dull. The action sequences are impressive, but devoid of any stakes or audience-investment thanks to the overly-confusing slog of the first half. And even Pattinson and Washington's charisma can only carry the movie so far. Aaron Taylor-Johnson pops up in the second half of the movie, but his scenes are bogged down in the military-patois laden exposition he is forced to deliver.
For a film with such an original premise, "Tenet" is full of generic action movie tropes — a Russian bad guy, a vague end-of-the-world plot, and a protagonist galivanting across the globe trying to stop the bad things happening before they happen. After seeing the movie, I still don't really know why exactly Kenneth Branagh's villain wants to execute his plan.
He seems to be evil for the sake of the plot and nothing more. He's a knock-off Bond villain, but more Robert Carlyle in "The World is Not Enough" than Javier Bardem in "Skyfall." If it weren't for the trickery of the time-warping palindrome premise, it might feel like a Jack Ryan movie rather than a Nolan masterpiece.
All of this makes "Tenet" feel like an action movie with a very clever high-concept idea that it doesn't fully deliver on. I left the theater feeling tired, almost run down, whereas I left "Inception" feeling enthralled, "Interstellar" feeling like I'd had my mind opened wide, and "Dunkirk" feeling emotional. All three of those films, and every other Nolan film for that matter, left me feeling as if I'd just seen something truly special.
"Tenet" just left me vaguely frustrated, thoroughly confused, and, ultimately, a bit disappointed.
The bottom line: Nolan has delivered another brilliantly-made movie, but it feels more like an idea than a proper film
Ultimately, the idea behind "Tenet" is intriguing, but it hasn't made for the thrilling film we expected. Instead, the film is preoccupied with this mind-bending idea but forgets to invite the audience to come along on its journey or build any suspense. While "Inception" felt fully formed with high-stakes, "Tenet" doesn't.
That said, the expert filmmaking required to pull off the movie's impressive stunts once again proves that Nolan is one of the best directors around.
This isn't a bad film — Nolan isn't capable of making a bad movie — but it sadly isn't a great one and therefore cannot compete with the best of the director's filmography.
Grade: C+
Read more:
From NFL running back to 'Tenet' star: Everything you need to know about John David Washington
Robert Pattinson failed to hide his Batman audition from Christopher Nolan while shooting 'Tenet'