After much fanfare and many delays, Christopher Nolan’s latest epic, Tenet finally hit theaters yesterday for early access and I was totally there to see it. And just like the other films I’ve seen at my local theater, not a single other living sole was watching it with me. A little sad, but I was ultimately grateful for it. Let’s just say that despite all the hype that this film was receiving, it didn’t totally live up to it, and I’ll try to explain why without giving away all its secrets. Although, if you watch all the trailers available for it, you pretty much have the entire movie plot at your fingertips.
I say this because perhaps the movie’s biggest fault is not giving any of its main characters any real depth. There was no emotional attachment to these people, and they sort of rolled through the motions almost like an AI would tackle what’s been set forth before them. Don’t get me wrong, I think all the actors did great with what they were given, but they really weren’t given much. I would say that Kenneth Branagh’s villian, Sator, was the most well developed of the bunch, which is fun since he was the main source of evil.
Aiding in the poor character development was really the lack of any deep plot. It was more confusing than it was deep. Plus, the big threat to earth was thrown so hastily into a sentence that if you weren’t paying attention you would have missed it. Sure, the film is alluding to it all along, but when it comes to outright naming the consequence, there’s not much behind it. And going back to our main characters, their personal reasons for getting involved are pretty shallow.
Now onto the good. The action sequences were probably some of Nolan’s most ambitious and best to date, but as someone approaching their 30s, I struggled to hear the dialogue over the action. That’s a little problematic when what they’re saying is fairly crucial to what’s going on. There were some pretty ah-ha moment callbacks throughout the film that seemed to tie it together more, but then other conclusions were also made and just spoken aloud (a little anti-climatic). Aside from the story line, I did enjoy the chemistry between all the cast, especially that of John David Washington’s protagonist and Robert Pattinson’s Neil.
Overall, this film didn’t really feel all that new and original coming from Christopher Nolan. Tenet bends time and “entropy,” but haven’t we already seen that in Memento and Inception? It’s basically the same concept, only he’s renamed it “inversion.” I realize I’ve said all these negative things about the film, but I truly didn’t hate it. It had me engrossed from the start, but it’s the looking back that’s got me a little disappointed. With all that being said, I think this film was meant to be watched more than once, so I plan on making that happen when it’s available to rent down the line. If you’re looking for a great Christopher Nolan film while you hold out on heading to the theater, might I recommend Memento or The Prestige instead? Definitely more worthy of your time.