One Mann’s Movies review of “Tenet” (2020).
Bob the Movie Man’s Rating:
Certification:
US: PG-13. UK: 12.
A Man, a plan, a canal, Panama.
Tenet is the long awaited new movie from Christopher Nolan. The movie that’s set to reboot the multiplexes post-Covid. It’s a manic, extremely loud, extremely baffling sci-fi cum spy rollercoaster that will please a lot of Nolan fan-boys but which left me with very mixed views.
How to write a spoiler-free plot summary?
It’s very difficult, and so any summary will be brief and high-level.
John David Washington (Denzel’s lad) plays “The Protagonist” – a crack-CIA field operative who is an unstoppable one-man army in the style of Hobbs or Shaw. Recruited into an even more shadowy organisation, he’s on the trail of an international arms dealer, Andrei Sator (Kenneth Branagh in full villain mode). Sator is bullying his estranged wife Kat (Elizabeth Debicki) over custody of their son (and the film unusually has a BBFC warning about “Domestic Abuse”).
Our hero jets the world to try to prevent a very particular kind of Armageddon while also keeping the vulnerable and attractive Kat alive.
“You want to crash a plane?”. Robert Pattinson and John David Washington plotting on how to spend Nolan’s budget. (Source: Warner Bros).
Extraordinary set pieces.
This is cinema at its biggest and boldest. Nolan has taken a cinema ‘splurge’ gun, filled it with money, set it on rapid fire, removed the safety and let rip at the screen. Given that Nolan is famous for doing all of his ‘effects’ for real and ‘in camera’, some of what you see performed is almost unbelievable. You thought crashing a train through rush-hour traffic in “Inception” was crazy? You ain’t seen nothing yet with the airport scene! And for lovers of Chinooks (I must admit I am one and rush out of the house to see one if I hear it coming!) there is positively Chinook-porn on offer in the film’s ridiculously huge finale.
The ‘inversion’ aspects of the story also lends itself to some fight scenes – one in particular in an airport ‘freeport’ – which are both bizarre to watch and, I imagine, technically extremely challenging to pull off. In this regard John David Washington is an acrobatic and talented stunt performer in his own right, and must have trained for months for this role.
Bondesque locations
Nolan’s crew also certainly racked up their air miles pre-lockdown, since the locations range far and wide across the world. The locations encompassed Denmark, Estonia, India, Italy, Norway, the United Kingdom, and United States. Hoyte Van Hoytema‘s cinematography is lush in introducing these, especially the beautiful Italian coast scenes. Although I did miss the David Arnold strings that would typically introduce these in a Bond movie: it felt like that was missing.
Italy’s Amalfi coast, looking glorious. (Source: Warner Bros).
The “Aha!” moments
The ‘timey-wimey’ aspects of the plot are also intriguing and very cleverly done. There are numerous points at which you think “Oh, that’s a sloppy continuity error” or “Shame the production design team missed that cracked wing mirror”. Then later in the movie, you get at least a dozen “Aha!” moments. Some of them (no spoilers) are jaw-droppingly spectacular.
Perhaps the best twist is hidden in the final line of the movie. I only processed it on the way home. The illustrious Mrs Movie Man missed it entirely!
You what??
And so to the first of my significant gripes with Tenet. The sound mix in the movie is all over the place. I’d go stronger than that… it’s f****** awful! The illustrious Mrs Movie Man – who is far more learned that I am – pointed out that Nolan often implemented Shakespeare’s trick of having characters in the play provide exposition of the plot to aid comprehension. But unfortunately, all of this exposition dialogue was largely incomprehensible. This was due to:
- the ear-splitting volume of the sound (the Cineworld screen I was in seemed to have the sound turned up to 11 and the sub-woofer turned up to 22). Movie audiences are going to be suffering from ‘Tenetis’! (that joke © David Moody, 2020);
- the dialogue is poorly mixed with the thumping music by Ludwig Göransson (Wot? No Hans Zimmer?);
- a large proportion of the dialogue was through masks of varying description (#covid-appropriate). Aaron Taylor-Johnson was particularly unintelligible to my ears.
Overall, watching this with subtitles at a special showing might be advisable! The subtitles made watching “Hamilton” vastly more enjoyable… this might be another case in point!
It really is Yesterday for Himesh Patel! (Source: Warner Bros).
A PhD is not enough to understand Tenet.
OK, so I only have a PhD in Physics… but at times I was completely lost as to the intricacies of the plot. It made “Inception” look like “The Tiger Who Came to Tea”. There was an obvious ‘McGuffin’ in “Inception” – – (“These ‘dream levels’… how exactly are they architected??”…. “Don’t worry… they’ll never notice”. And we didn’t!) In “Tenet” there are McGuffins nested in McGuffins. So much of this is casually waved away as “future stuff… you’re not qualified” that it feels vaguely condescending to the audience. At one point Sator says to Kat “You don’t know what’s going on, do you?” and she shakes her head blankly. We’re right with you there luv!
There are also gaps in the storyline that jar. The word “Tenet”? What does it mean. Is it just a password? I’m none the wiser.
The manic pace of Tenet and the constant din means that the movie gallops along like a series of disconnected (albeit brilliant) action set pieces. For me, it has none of the emotional heart of the Cobb’s marriage problems from “Inception” or the father/daughter separation of “Interstellar“. In fact, you barely care for anyone in the movie, perhaps with the exception of Kat.
Suits you sir! Surely this movie is a shoe-in (no pun intended) for an Oscar nomination for costume. (Source: Warner Bros).
A talented cast
As mentioned above, John David Washington is muscular and athletic in the role. It’s a big load for the actor to carry in such a tentpole movie, given his only significant starring role before was in the excellent BlacKkKlansman. But he carries it off well. A worthy successor to Gerard Butler and Jason Statham for action roles in the next 10 years.
This is also a great performance by Robert Pattinson, in his most high-profile film in a long time, playing the vaguely alcoholic and Carré-esque support guy. Pattinson’s Potter co-star Clemence Poésy also pops up – rather more un-glam that usual – as the scientist plot-expositor early in the movie.
Nolan’s regular Michael Caine also pops up. although the 87-year old legend is starting to show his age: His speech was obviously affected at the time of filming (though nice try Mr Nolan in trying to disguise that with a mouth full of food!). But in my book, any amount of Caine in a movie is a plus. He also gets to deliver the best killer line in the film about snobbery!
However, it’s Kenneth Branagh and Elizabeth Debicki that really stand out. They were both fabulous, especially when they were bouncing off each other in their marital battle royale.
Elizabeth Debicki and Kenneth Branagh as the warring Sators. Their marriage is going through the opposite of a ‘purple patch’. (Source: Warner Bros).
Tenet requires a second viewing
So, given this was my most anticipated movie of the year, it’s a bit of a curate’s egg for me. A mixture of being awe-struck at times and slightly disappointed at others.
You’ll see I’ve given the movie a rating below. But it’s a movie which needs a second watch, so I’m heading back today to give my ear drums another bashing! And this is one where I reserve the right to revisit my rating after that second watch… it’s not likely to go down… but it might go up.
Postscript: after second viewing
So… a second viewing was very enjoyable, since many bits that you missed the first time through became a lot more evident. IIt also made a BIT more sense. I also saw it in a screen where the sound was slightly less “blood coming out of the ears”, which was far preferable.
I’m still going to stick with my original rating though, since the flaws I observed the first time are still self-evident. With a bit more discipline and a better sound mix, this could have been an absolute classic.
Trailer:
The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LdOM0x0XDMo .
Reposting this Facebook comment from Tricia Lin Snyder here since I found it so interesting.
“I felt compelled to comment here as I read your review on IMDB. I agree with most of it. However,to help your understanding, I wanted to offer this: The Latin palindrome Sator Square is where the word Tenet comes from.”
That palindrome Square is ingenious! In my mind it is a super palindrome as it doesn’t just merely read the same backwards, The Creator has managed to make it read the same in the columns. This is a bit like a numerical magic square but not quite. Bob mentioned that the tenet movie was based on a palindrome. However if they based the movie on the logic behind this palindrome Square, then I think that the TENET movie would be even more confusing and we would all have to take a week off work to understand it!
Indeed! I was hoping you might have been an extra on this one so you might have had an inside track!