Tenet (2020)

User Review

• 

  d_riptide

  7 / 10

  Compared to Christoper Nolan’s other innovational and sometimes ingenious works and masterpieces, “TENET” is likely to be considered his most inaccessible film in recent memory due to how experimental, detached and cold it all feels. Despite capturing his gorgeous visual style with urban settings, men in suits, muted colours, dialogue scenes framed in wide close-ups with a shallow depth of field and modern locations and architecture, the actual context needed here that carried his other films is, for lack of a better word.....lacking. The use of sound mixing was off-putting at best and incomprehensible at worst as I couldn’t understand some of the dialogue and whatever splices I could understand, were either completely robotic or just not very stellar. And then there’s the complete hollow display of characters presented to us (only one of which actually get any sort of development) as well as one of the most needlessly complicated plots I have ever seen due to the complex setup and brutal backwards mechanics.
  
  Regardless of such, I still found a little too much to enjoy here. Nolan is one of the few directors out there who can get me to care about the plot at hand without having to actually latch on to the characters involved, which is thankfully reflected by the solid acting here. The score within itself is very fast and thrilling, the very concept of this movie within itself is damn fascinating while the choreography displays some of the most enthralling and heart-pounding movesets I’ve had yet to see in a movie, it’s lack of special effects paves the way for some far-from-generic jaw dropping action sequences (especially the last act which is basically James Bond and Call Of Duty high on steroids and dipped in acid) and once you get past the second act and the complexity behind the story gets cleared up a little bit, it still continues to go full throttle in serving up all the cerebral spectacle audiences expect from a Christopher Nolan production.
  
  This is another new, fascinating and confusing concept that, unfortunately, isn’t completely balanced between his own machinations and the amount of depth that goes into his storytelling. And similar to his previous works, his newest film is a tricky puzzle to decipher but rewards the eagle eyed viewers for paying close enough attention to the mystery and being able to catch up. It demands a lot of patience, showcasing the best aspects of Nolan while also highlighting the worst elements to his craft. I think that’s what I appreciate the most about this movie: for a dizzying, delirious ride, both the best and worst aspects of it adds more to the emphasis that “Hey, action movies can still make us think.”

  Like?

  2 member like this review.