★★★★

Tenet (2020)

Written by Dalton Welsh - September 1, 2020

With cinemas struggling under the current crisis and streaming services continuing to put out popular content, Christopher Nolan has yet again made a strong case for returning to the cinema to see films on the big screen. His new film “Tenet” follows a nameless secret agent played by John David Washington who is thrown into a time-bending mission to save the world along with his confidant Neil played by Robert Pattinson. The film is ultimately successful in its performances, stunts, spectacle, camera work, intriguing high concept premise and music but is unfortunately held back from being something truly spectacular due to the usual Nolan shortcomings of heavy exposition, at times overwhelming sound and a lacking of deeper characterization for our central characters.

Being such an intricate complex film means that exposition in some form is a necessity for the story. And effort is always made to make it concise, keeping a brisk pace to it and ensuring it doesn’t drag down the energy of the film. Often shooting in nice locations accompanied by well-written dialogue. However, it can, specifically in the opening scenes of the film, feel a little bit much. Perhaps by instead showing the audience the details of the plot through the characters experiences in the scenes of action it would not only minimize the frequent scenes of expository dialogue but could potentially aid in giving more time for developing the characters at the center of the film.

Despite this lacking in deepened characterization, causing a slight feeling of emotional voidness to the film, the performances from the cast are still great. Robert Pattinson portraying great charisma and charm and John David Washington showing great dedication to the action, doing a great job carrying the film as the protagonist. And glimmers of emotion can be found in Elizabeth Debicki’s performance as Kat, wife to the films antagonist Andrei Sator who Kenneth Branagh portrays with just the right amount of villainy and intensity, thankfully straying away from cheesy territory.

One of the shining spots of the film is the spectacular visuals on display. While the framing of the shots themselves are decent, the constant motion of the camera and the way director of photography Hoyte Van Hoytema is able to capture scale and complex visual effects is incredible. Watching elements in the frame that are moving both forwards and in reverse is a feat in and of itself, and then to capture it with such energy adds to these awe-inspiring special effects. Nolan again impressing with his dedication to practical effects, through car chases, miniature work, plane crashes, explosions, he has truly out done himself. And it is refreshing to see so much of the effects done in camera, especially on such a big budget film like this. And despite the film being 2 and a half hours, the constant array of interesting and varying visuals and editing that is very tight, at times to the films detriment causing some moments to feel cut a little short, the film continually maintains an incredible pacing.

Then the action is probably the best that has been seen in any of Nolan’s films. The choreography in the scenes of hand to hand combat and the interesting scenarios in which he places the action adds another layer to the scene and makes a strong case that other films should follow of choosing interesting locations to place action. The intensity of this action is made all the more exciting by Ludwig Goransson’s accompanying score. While similar to the sound mixing in Nolan’s previous films Interstellar and Dunkirk in that sometime the score drowns out some necessary dialogue, the score itself is still successful. Bombastic, possessing high intensity and with sounds that seem to have been inverted to mimic elements of the story make the score absolutely essential to the film. While not wholly original, seemingly taking inspiration from some of Hans Zimmer’s work on Blade Runner 2049, it is still one of the more memorable elements of the film, the magnitude of its sound leaving an impression and reminding us of the films high stakes.

So while there are issues in ‘Tenet’ that are slowly becoming the norm for Nolan’s film in thinly written characters and frequent scenes of exposition very similar to “Inception”. The positives far out way the negatives in its dedicated performances, exciting and inventive action, spectacular special effects and set pieces, a complex and high concept story, a breakneck pace and energy heightened by an impacting and tyrannical score and flowing all-encompassing camerawork. It is by no means the cream of Nolan’s crop but is nonetheless another ambitious and exciting film to add to his catalogue.