'Tenet' (12)

***

The world as we know it is under threat - time travel has been weaponised and World War Three is on the horizon...

So, I've seen Tenet and I have a question: what the bloody hell is going on? Actually, that's not true - I have many questions, but that's the main one. Upon returning from the cinema in a state of confusion and questioning my own intelligence, I took to the internet to uncover what I had just witnessed, and found that just about everyone else on the planet had spent the lengthy runtime going 'huh?'. This might partly be because Ludwig Göransson's score (no Hans Zimmer this time!) is at its loudest and most eardrum-popping when various characters are talking, or it simply might be that Christoper Nolan has created a film that is almost completely incoherent. I fear it may be the latter. It's not just that Tenet is less than the sum of its parts (there are some good sequences), it's that Nolan completely over-complicates an idea - because time travel and inversion was obviously not complex enough in the first place. Worst of all, there's never that revelation moment where everyone gasps 'ohhh', such as in Nolan's previous works of Memento, The Prestige or even Interstellar. Throughout the film, I was sitting there thinking: 'it's OK - it'll all be explained and then I'll understand', but it never happened. Instead, we find ourselves jumping between Russia and Vietnam with various characters taking up different temporal spaces while the soundtrack threatens to deafen us. 

I also felt that the lack of likeable or even knowable characters really affects how this film sits. Our main character (John David Washington) is completely anonymous - the only name assigned to him is 'The Protagonist' - and that really impacts how I as the viewer connected with the story. In the opening montage, we're told that he's a good man because he'll die rather than give up his men, but that's literally all we know about him. It seems strange, especially as the latter half of the film is apparently built on his desire to save Kat (Elizabeth Debicki) from her abusive relationship when there isn't an ounce of chemistry between them! I've seen more passion between two inanimate objects that when Washington and Debecki spar with each other, and yet he's meant to be motivated to risk his life because of her? It just doesn't sit at all. Other characters rock up and disappear, each apparently drained of all emotion, without explanation or impact, leaving Neil (Robert Pattinson) as the only player to actually bring any kind of spirit or fervour to the screen. As we're talking about characters at this point, I feel that now is the time to turn to Kenneth Branagh: why, why, why, WHY was the decision made for Sir Ken to do a pantomime Russian accent? Branagh is a fine Shakespearean actor, it's true, but a Russian accent!? It also doesn't help that he does a lot of plot-explaining, all while speaking like an 80s caricature.

OK, so the good things. You have to admire Nolan's ability and determination to bring big ideas to audiences via the blockbuster medium, and even though Tenet is far from his other masterpieces, you have to take your hat off to him. Secondly, it looks great: returning to work with Nolan after visual feasts such as Interstellar and Dunkirk,  Hoyte Van Hoytema utilises his camera to the max, intertwining epic, sweeping shots with intense close-ups. There are also a couple of very good set pieces, including the car chase and aeroplane explosion that everyone's seen in the trailer - these are big, brash blockbuster feats, and yet also undeniably artistic at the same time. 

Unfortunately, there's no denying that Tenet is Nolan's weakest film to date. Determined to over-complicate the already mind-frying world of time travel, Nolan alienates the audience and never makes amends, instead leaving us with more questions than answers, and definitely not in the good way. Characters devoid of emotion, a booming soundtrack overbearing any speech and a sequence of scenes that never quite link together also let the movie down. It can't be denied, however, that it is good to be back watching things on the big screen again.