He’s a filmmaker whose work is often so bold, it’s baffling. Many occasions, you might not be absorbing the rush of details involved in Christopher Nolan’s offering, but you’re hooked. And that’s hopefully great incentive for moviegoers, ’cause rarely has a big screen release faced such a huge challenge as ‘Tenet’.
The sci-fi thriller and its $200 million dollar budget is Hollywood’s first true gamble that audiences are ready to return to theaters. Sure, the Russell Crowe road rage vehicle ‘Unhinged’ was first out of the gate, but that was – for the most part – a movie fueled by ruthless brawn, not brains. ‘Tenet’, on the other hand, is your traditional mind blowing stuff from Nolan; from ‘Inception’ to ‘Interstellar’ and even the majority of his ‘Batman’ trilogy, you can all but guarantee your noggin will get a decent workout when seeing one of Nolan’s films. It’s a big reason why a movie with the director’s name in the credits is considered an ‘event’. And at no point has the business ever DEPENDED on that facet than now.
John David Washington (‘BlackKklansman’, though his biggest credit – for now, anyway – is probably being Denzel’s son) is the lead in ‘Tenet’, a character known as The Protagonist (yes, that is literally his name). A mysterious covert agent, The Protagonist is recruited, along with British agent Neil (Robert Pattinson) to stop Andrei Sator (Kenneth Branagh), a Russian madman, from starting World War 3 and destroying life as we know it. The deal is, Sator has gained use of technology that provides him control over the present day via the future…and if you’re thinking that will give the director an opportunity to numb our minds with time shifts and other assorted goodies, you know Nolan all too well.
Visually, ‘Tenet’ is a spectacular film. There are car chases, futuristic battle sequences, things that go boom, etc….in fact, for a film that runs about 2 and a half hours, ‘Tenet’ moves at breakneck speed. It’s not the action that will exhaust you, however…it’s trying to keep up with the plot. It might take multiple viewings to catch (or, should I say, comprehend) everything thrown at you in the movie….but when it’s such a full, enjoyable feast, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.
‘Tenet’ isn’t Christopher Nolan’s best film, but it IS a great film. Expect to be impressed.
