Tenet is the latest movie from Christopher Nolan, who wrote and directed it. It stars the talented John David Washington (Denzel's son), a charming Robert Pattinson, Kenneth Branagh in a brutal role, and Elizabeth Debicki in a strange role. Did I like the movie? No. I'm sure there were many people who did. But it's hard to believe this is the same Christopher Nolan who made the fantastic Interstellar.
Tenet is billed as an action and sci-fi film, but in my opinion, it doesn't work well as either. Or rather, it should have been one or the other. As an action film, it's entertaining to watch--fast-paced and good action sequences. Like a modern Bond film. I'm willing to suspend my need for a totally logical plot if action movies are entertaining. But they have to make some sense. Tenet should have remained an action thriller without the added sci-fi element, because the idea of inverted time made no sense to me, was not well-explained, and simply served to muddle the plot. As Collider.com explains, "the basics of time inversion is that someone in the future invented some doodad that allows time to flow backwards. Therefore, certain elements are flowing backwards through time. Their trajectory has become inverted." Oh kay. My question is why? Why is this interesting? Toward the end of the film, when the blue and red groups of soldiers (regular time and inverted time soldiers) are advancing and retreating multiple times, it was enough to cause whiplash. It made me dizzy. I kept wondering when it was all going to end. I kept thinking--please stop. I kept wondering how many times we needed to see fire and smoke pulled back into windows and doors, like what happens in backdrafts. Except that this was to illustrate inverted time? How many times did we need to see that? One or two times was ok, more than that, no. I have no desire to sit through this film again trying to figure it all out. Once was enough. And that was NOT how I felt about Interstellar, which I've seen at least three times at this writing. It is not enough to throw the idea of inverted time out there for us as moviegoers to figure out. That's the moviemaker's job. Better luck next film, Mr. Nolan.
