Nicolaus Taylor

TENET is the film it promised to be: a nail-biting blockbuster with absurdly cool visuals and an A+ concept. Although it's hard to follow, especially without subtitles, it's what we're not told that lets me down about this film. Christopher Nolan expertly demands your attention with a high concept premise that results in some truly amazingly choreographed action scenes that must have been incredibly hard to shoot. I appreciate the stuntwork, the cinematography and the slick score from Ludwig Göransson. The acting, especially from John David Washington, Robert Pattinson and Elizabeth Debicki are all superb and Oscar worthy. Not to mention Kenneth Branagh in a chillingly adversarial role. But while it does so many things perfectly, it swings and misses a lot too. Nolan famously doesn't talk down to his audience. While you have to have a certain understanding and appreciation of intricate stories to enjoy his films, this one is lacking a lot that the rest of his catalog offers. For one, an understandable premise. Inception was confusing only at first, but on repeat viewings the audience eventually got it. Interstellar was the same way: a bit far-fetched, especially when pivoting on hypothetical astrophysics, but we understood the truth of the world in which we were provided. But Tenet's main let down is that world building is sacrificed for cool action scenes. "Don't try to understand it," Barbara the scientist tells us. We are focused on the what, not the how. I don't need to be briefed on how time inversion works to appreciate this film, but when you're introducing such an outlandish and impossible scenario, we need something more than "it works because the story needs it to work." That's just lazy writing, any screenwriting professor will tell you. The other thing that Tenet does not offer is heart. Inception has DiCaprio trying to find a way back to his children. Interstellar has McConaughey's estranged relationship with his daughter. Even Dunkirk had friendship and duty in the face of great adversity. But Tenet gives you none of that. The stakes? End of the world. The goal? Stop the bad guy from doing a thing. Motivation? Because we need to. And we're not even given a main character to relate to. Not even a name! Brilliant, when Nolan does it; hard pass if anyone else does. It's a shoot-em-up, Michael Bay-esque flick done with Nolan's suave style but nothing below the surface. It's fun to watch, but impossible to understand. And why should we understand it? What is the payoff if we do? Absolutely nothing. The more you try to understand it, the more it doesn't make any sense. And that's why we were given what we were promised by Nolan and Warner Bros, but we wanted- we expected- we needed something more! We've been spoiled by Christopher Nolan in the past and we hoped Tenet would exceed all expectations. We thought Tenet would be a mind-bending action film for the ages, and while it introduced a great concept and provided sublime visuals it was not the iceberg that we came to see. It was a finely crafted ice block floating in the sea and nothing more.