Tenet Review (Will contain spoilers)

Written & Directed by Christopher Nolan

Starring: John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Himesh Patel, Clemence Posey, Aaron Taylor Johnson, Kenneth Branagh & Michael Caine.

Background to Tenet

What a long road this it has been, originally scheduled for a 17th July release before Covid hit, Tenet has been loftily positioned as the film to save cinema this year so no pressure there. Here in the UK we have returned to some form of the normalcy with cinemas open again with social distancing in place though we have to wear masks throughout. When cinemas reopened a few weeks back smaller more niche films like Proxima, Babyteeth and Unhinged were released alongside re-releases of many beloved classic films such as entries from the Star Wars, Lord of the Rings & Harry Potter franchises. Where other studios have been scared to release their big blockbusters moving them back by months, even years in places. Some studios like Disney have put their big summer release Mulan on Disney+ for £20 bypassing a cinema release completely at the moment, but Tenet is the first must see film being released post pandemic.

It is a risky proposition as famously we rarely know much about the plot of Nolans films before they are released (Dunkirk being an exception) and all we'd been told about Tenet (or guessed from the trailers) was that it was a sci fi esponiage action film. The trailers gave away very little of the plot but promised spectacle that would have to be seen on the biggest screen possible with most of the film shot on IMAX cameras.

So SPOILERS from the start here regarding the plot of Tenet, the most basic descripton of the plot is that John David Washington plays The Protagonist a CIA agent who during a bungled operation where he appears to meet his end is acutally revived and recruited by a secret organisation who task him with stopping world war 3.

So far so good then he is introduced to Clemence Posey's scientist character who tries to explain the concept of 'inversion' to The Protagonist and also the audience, I'm not sure she succeeds at either! There is something about people in the future who can invert objects which makes time travel backwards but only for the concenred objects and they think (as there is no acutal evidence) that someone is going to try and kill everyone in the past from the future. Still with me... yeah, I'm not going to go through the whole plot of the movie in foresenic detail looking for it all to make sense when the scientist character tells us to 'just go with it'. So we are in 'Looper' territory here where a conceit has been set up but its too complicated to explain and the director would rather not focus on the how and why of the 'inversion' macguffin.

We find out that Kenneth Branagh's russian businessman is the villain firstly by the way he mistreats his wife and secondly beacuse he is walking bad guy cliche who threatens who cut our protagonists throat and put his balls in there during their first meeting. The film then bceomes two films a well acted drama with Branaghs wife played by the great Elizabeth Debicki who wants to get herself and her child away from him and action set piece after action set piece.

As the film progresses we see past events from the eariler in the film that are so obviously signposted that unfortunately nothing really suprised me in this film. Early on Debicki's character remarks about seeing a woman jump from a yacht into the sea and how free that woman is...can you guess who that woman is? Clearly its her later near the climax of the film!

When the Protagonist keeps asking Robert Pattinsons character Neil who he works for, its really no suprise at the end of the film when we find out as does the Protagonist that he acutally starts the organisation in the future.

So there you have it there is a bad guy who wants to destroy the world as he is a bit miserable and his wife doesn't love him, The Protagonist is sent to stop him while they fight back and forth over a macguffin item that they both need, then the climax of the film is a massive action film in reverse (which makes it incredibly hard to follow) intercut with Debicki's character getting her revenge on Branagh.

Random Pros & Cons

PROS -

- The acting across the board is really good, John David Washington as the Protagonist brings some much needed charisma and humour to the film, he has a magnetic presence onscreen and thats before we get to the sheer physicality of his role having many long action scenes and in places having had to learn the fight choreography backwards.

- Robert Pattinson as Neil the Protagonists handler is good as expected and has a great chemistry with Washington throughout.

- I'm torn on Kenneth Branaghs Russian villan Andrei Sator as no good reason is given for why he wants to destroy the whole world other than his wife doesn't love him, its a shit motivation and we learn next to nothing about what he does in the future. That said his performance as a cold blooded abusive husband is fairly spot on and that is only aided by Elizabeth Debicki's performance as his estranged wife Kat

- The amazing action scenes and judicious use of CGI that I enjoyed more because of a 10 minute min making of doc that was shown before Inception last week that showed how they did really crash a plane for that sequence.

- Opening scene is great taking us up to The Protagonist dying before the opening the credits

- Elizabeth Debicki is awesome in this film and does all the heavy lifting dramatic acting in the film

- Its a technical masterpiece with great cinematography from Hoyt Van Hoytema

CONS -

- No character arcs for anyone other than the 4 main characters - everyone else in the cast is limited to one, maybe two scenes at most.

- Even though its not Hans Zimmer, Ludwig Goransson's music sounds exactly like Inception

- The plot twists and later reveals are obviously signposted from the beginning of the film

- Story feels done already and is ironically similar to Avengers Endgame in that our characters go back through past events, here they experience the events and then we get to see the same events from the inverted timeline

- Inversion is never really explained properly which is a shame as if the audience don't fully understand the mechanics of how the plot is unravelling then we become less engaged

- The end set piece of the falls flat and although its explained to us there are two teams Red & Blue and a splinter team, we never really see who they are fighting and bar Branagh's Sator no other villanious character is really fleshed out. We get the arms dealer Priya but she is so forgettable her death at the end of the film lacks resonance

- Muffled dialogue in places so we miss important lines, which is my only technical complaint about the film

Finally...

The film covers the narrative cracks with top tier action scenes and a great central cast who all deliver top notch work in their performances, however as the film progressed I stopped trying to work out why and what was happening and just relaxed into the fact that its not supposed to make sensse as the scientist explains to The Protagonist and the audience at the start of the film.

It feels like a Nolan greatest hits movie and bar the performances of the actors we've seen everything in this movie before in Nolans previous works. Two characters with a troubled marraige (Mal & Cobb in Inception), booming klaxxon soundtrack (most Nolan films) and globe trotting to find a mcguffin. I wonder if I would have enjoyed it more if I had not rewatched Inception just last week? Its a cleaner movie that makes much more narrative and emotional sense and when the twists are revealed they are well earned and work. Here all the major narrative twists were obvious to me the first time they are signposted and there was no part of the plot that surprised me unfortunately, that said it is still a really good film that just falls short narratively of Nolans best work but like all true great directors a few rewatches will be needed to see if my opinion on the film will change with time.