September 02nd, 2020

​EARLY ACCESS REVIEW of tenet

One cannot talk Tenet without acknowledging the place it sits in 2020 theater going - or lack thereof - and the weight absorbed on its shoulders with open arms by Christopher Nolan. The movie itself is big, action-laden and conceptually big.

I feel as though I could spend my time reviewing Tenet - and prepping for the inevitable pushback - by describing other complex movies I love and how high Inception ranks on my favorites of all-time. Yep. You all see where I'm going. Multiple times throughout watching Tenet, I had absolutely no idea what was going on, yet, here I will try to summarize the plot and describe the feeling that I continue to fight today - I just don't know what the movie was really about. The John David Washington character is trying to prevent the Kenneth Branagh character from destroying the world, whole protecting Elizabeth Debicki along the way and up pops Robert Pattinson, as well as a boss that has somehow brought time inversion and bullets along for this ride. Simply put, I'm probably too dull and devoid of intelligence to truly get what was going on and this makes not for a challenging film, but a unique experience that I've rarely encountered. Nolan's opening scene and terrific, mind-bending action sequences are as good as you will see around. However, this action is woven into exposition that doesn't connect, often with DJW's character often explaining or coming to the realization of what just happened seconds before, as if they decided to keep these in to help us figure it out. All in all, the movie is solid enough because it is Nolan orchestrating these wonderful action sequences. However, I kept thinking, would we all give another movie the same pass we probably are here because it is Nolan. As I said, someone smarter than me can figure this out. Tenet may have been worth waiting for but the final product itself feels less than stellar with some fun action along the way.

What to Eat?
Hell. Give me a drink.