294. Tenet; movie review

 

TENET

Cert 12A

150 mins

BBFC advice: Contains moderate violence, threat, domestic abuse, infrequent strong language

"What on earth was all that about?", I inquired of Mrs W as we departed Derby Odeon.

"I haven't got a clue," was her perplexed response.

Tenet had been on our watch list since August but we haven't been keen on visiting picture houses because of the prevalence of the Covid-19 virus.

Nevertheless, second wave or not, we had to see the Christopher Nolan film which was set up to be the saviour of cinema.

It is easy to see why it hasn't been.

In short, Tenet is brain-achingly complicated.

A month ago, I revisted Inception and finally got my head around its layers of dreams - now Nolan stretches believability even further by creating a movie which runs the present, past and future in parallel with each other.

Apparently, an understanding of how time can be altered is the key to saving the world!

So, we have scenes which are layered on top of each other but from different time frames. Indeed, characters go backwards in one scenario while going forwards in another.

The film looks amazing but these effects are so distracting we couldn't follow Tenet's storyline

What about the acting?

It would be fair to say that Kenneth Branagh makes a decent villain - he seems to enjoy hamming it up as a Russian crime lord who despises everyone.

And I thought both John David Washington and Robert Pattinson were decent enough as the two agents who are battling to prevent the apocalypse.

But Nolan's story, although clearly thought-through to the most intricate scientific detail, simply left us cold.

Perhaps we need to see it again for the mists to clear as they did with Inception but I doubt it. My sincere belief is that it is far too clever for its own good.

Reasons to watch: It's the film which was going to save cinema.

Reasons to avoid: Mind-bendingly confusing

Laughs: None

Jumps: None

Vomit: None

Nudity: None

Overall rating: 6/10

Did you know? The production crew actually purchased a real Boeing 747 aeroplane so they could make it crash. There were no visual effects used and no CGI for this scene.

The final word. John David Washington: "How did he (Nolan) come up with something like this? This is INSANE! This script took me four hours to read. Like, I would read ten pages, go back five. Read fifteen, go back ten. " The Tech 

Share this post