TENET

On 26th August 2020, TENET released as the first blockbuster in cinemas since the Coronavirus pandemic shut cinemas down in March. As the next film in Christopher Nolan’s filmography, it was expected that the film was going to attempt to break our minds – and that is absolutely true. The premise of stopping WW3 sounds simple enough; it soon gets far more complicated when the audience learn that time is being inverted and playing out backwards at random (Or so you think).

Whilst nothing Oscar worthy, the performances of the film are all great and extremely well cast. John David Washington gives a fantastic performance as the simply named Protagonist and is very much as confused as the audience at all of the shenanigans occurring. Robert Pattinson is also great and his chemistry with Washington really sells the film – although you always feel he knows more than he lets on. Elizabeth Debicki is great but for what is (More or less) a glorified spy movie; she is little more than a typical damsel in distress to the phenomenal Kenneth Branagh villain.

Now I will say right now that this is probably Nolan’s most confusing film put to screen so far – even more so than Inception. In this regard however I believe Robbie Collin of The Telegraph put it best; “don’t try to understand it – just rewind and enjoy the ride.” Whilst the second half really takes this in its stride, the first half relies rather heavily on exposition to explain itself which drags itself down overall. The really limited VFX and music score are absolutely flawless and make the film soar. The only complaint in this regard is that watching the film in IMAX results in the musical score overshadowing the dialogue in volume which makes the audience miss out dialogue which is essential to the audience understanding in the first half. Overall whilst not Nolan’s most well-made film; TENET still challenges the boundaries of filmmaking and the different ways of structuring stories.