You gotta give Christopher Nolan props for releasing Tenet in theaters during a pandemic. Despite what it may end up doing at the box-office once its run it’s course, Nolan is all about the movie going experience and whether you’re comfortable with going out to the movies, it’s a ballsy and bold decision to release a movie like this during the Coronavirus pandemic. But over the course of Nolan’s career (maybe soon after The Dark Knight), the fanbase has been continuing to grow and grow to the point where he’s, arguably, the most prolific and successful director in Hollywood today. Movies like Inception, Dunkirk and Interstellar are movies that if they weren’t directed by Christoper Nolan they probably wouldn’t be the grand successes that they ended top becoming. The name Christoper Nolan is probably the only director to get butts in seats, so it’s less of a risk for Warner Bros. to spend $200 million on a movie with Christopher Nolan at the helm. Originally slated for July 17th, Tenet finally hit theaters this Labor Day weekend and when looking at the entirety of Nolan’s career, Tenet is Nolan’s boldest, daring and challenging film to date. It’s action is jaw dropping, while also being artsy in the most creative and mind-blowing way. The performances from the entire cast and Nolan’s attention detail in virtually every spectrum is a testament to how great of a filmmaker Christopher Nolan really is.
Our main story focuses on a secret agent simply named as The Protagonist (John David Washington), who is assigned a mission for the survival of the entire human race. While traveling through international locations, the goal of this mission is to ultimately prevent the outbreak of WWIII.
Tenet takes all the aspects from almost every James Bond movie, but with a little twist of Inception, that creates one of the most dense and mind numbing experiences at the movie theater. Tenet is a bit difficult to explain without getting into spoiler territory, however it’s almost impossible to explain it after the first viewing. No matter if it’s your first time or your fifth to sixth time, the moment Tenet starts, it requires your undivided attention because if you are’t paying attention or look away for a second, it’s doing the movie a bit of a disservice. In its narrative, Tenet is easily one of the most dense and complex films to come out in some time. If you thought Inception or Interstellar was hard to follow, get ready for Tenet because the movie heavily deals with the ideas of time inversion and the reversing of physics. While it emphasizes on such a grand and colossal concept that may be too much for one to digest, Tenet is a fascinating and fully engaging movie. This will be a movie that will need a couple of viewings to fully grasp, just for the sake of clarity, however, Nolan masterfully handles a subject with a lot weight and lot of information, but finds a way to organically infuse it in our real world, thereby making it believable. Nolan might have been the only filmmaker to beautifully handle a movie like this, and boy does it work in spades.
Tenet takes all the aspects from almost every James Bond movie, but with a little twist of Inception, that creates one of the most dense and mind numbing experiences at the movie theater. Nolan captures the exotic location with delicacy and a crisp look, like a James Bond flick, but adds the spectacle and action of an Inception, thus is the creation of Tenet. There’s no telling how much CGI was used in Tenet and there’s stories going around that is used very little of it. Whatever the case may be, Tenet is a gorgeous and dazzling picture. Nolan teams up, once again, with cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema (Dunkirk, Interstellar), and the collaboration between these two is impeccable. Nolan will always craft a technically brilliant looking movie, and every moving frame of this movie is a piece of painting in its own right. From the visceral and incredible car chase to shots of the bays of Italy, Tenet is a clean and dashing looking movie.
Something that Tenet massively excels at were it’s incredible and jaw dropping action sequences. As mentioned earlier, Tenet wants to emphasize the use of practical effects, with very little CGI. It’s hard to imagine for a movie that costs $225 million to have any special effects, nevertheless, the action set pieces in this movie are absolutely fantastic. It’s very reminiscent to Mad Max: Fury Road, not in the sense of quality, but the style, the artistry and the inventiveness of it. Tenet is the type of action movie that pushes the limits of what kind of capability an action movie is capable of. Every single set piece in Tenet is absolutely nothing short of brilliance, whether you’re talking about the phenomenal opening sequence or epic climactic battle, Tenet is a stepping stone of the action movie template.
Just like every other Christopher Nolan flick, Tenet features an all star ensemble that all deliver superb performances. John David Washington really got his footing in Spike Lee’s BlacKkKlansman, but he turns in a charming and bad ass performance as the front center in Tenet. He’s smooth, intimidating and a modish action hero. His career is still in the early stages, but he’s proving to become one of Hollywood’s most competent actors working today. As for Robert Pattinson, this is a guy that keeps getting better and better with each performance. It’s such a great thing to see him done with the Twilight movies because none of those movies were able to showcase his talents. What Tenet does is not only remind you how terrific an actor he is, but it should make more people out there more comfortable with him playing Batman/Bruce Wayne in next year’s The Batman. He shares a great dynamic with John David Washington and it’s the relationship between these two that’s the glue that hold this movie together.
Tenet may not be Nolan’s best movie, but it’s definitely his most intriguing movie under his career. It’s action is awe inspiring, the performances are terrific and it’s visually and narratively dense. It expands the action genre to unprecedented levels and it proves that there’s no filmmaker like Christopher Nolan.
My grade for Tenet: A-
Zane's take at the Cinema's 