TENET (2020)

Written & Directed by Christopher Nolan

One Gloomy Thursday, August 27th to be precise, I ventured to the cinema to (((((potentially))))) risk my life to see the new Christopher Nolan film.

A SECRET AGENT EMBARKS ON A DANGEROUS, TIME-BENDING MISSION TO
PREVENT THE START OF WORLD WAR I I I .

TENET is an entertaining and well-paced tale of espionage and action presented with an intelligent concept. The focus around the high-concept plot device of inverted time is very smart and produces some very memorable sequences and ideas; for the most part, it initially seems very well thought out and consistent (despite quite a few logical flaws when you actually think about it), but it’s definitely the best part of the film and produces some truly amazing action set-pieces. It must have taken a lot of consideration and intelligence to develop and include a mechanism as complex as this.

Unfortunately, this film has a lot of flaws that stopped it from truly blowing me away. The editing early on is a bit jarring and incoherent; the sound mixing is not great and shows little consideration to the relationship between background noise and dialogue meaning at points it was difficult to understand what was being said (in a similar way to Dunkirk); the score (while fitting) isn’t as iconic as the music in Nolan’s other work; the cinematography by Hoyte van Hoytema (who is usually phenomenal) is kind of dull and generic, there are only a few memorable visually stunning moments, meaning I was genuinely very surprised when I saw his name in the credits.

I also think the character writing (and the writing in general) is really weak, with weak character dynamics and almost non-existent personality traits; especially with the villain, their motivations are established but it feels incredibly flimsy. Due to the imperfect character writing a lot of the personality of the characters are derived from the performances of the actors, and I am happy to say Washington and Pattinson are great, they really carry certain parts of the film. In conclusion, TENET is an overwhelmingly complex and developed concept, I just wish the rest of the film was just as developed.

It’s one of those films, that the more I think about it, the worse it gets. Well, at least it got me back to the cinema.