Tenet review

My thoughts on Tenet.

Spoilers ahead.




Just watched it.

I liked it but was not bowled over by it. Maybe a second viewing might be better, ideally at home on streaming or blu ray with subtitles.

The sound mix does drown out the dialogue in places, and this is a movie where the dialogue is crucial to follow the plot. By the end I had pretty much figured out most of it, but not all.

Essentially this is a Bond style spy movie, with the main character trying to investigate a crime, albeit an unusual one.

There were some great set pieces, notably the opening opera house heist, the freeway chase from both directions/time zones, the airplane crash sequence and the end battle.

In one sequence during the end battle, you could see soldiers from both teams going forward and backward in the same shot. I would be curious to know if that was CGI manipulation or if they had mimes or similar people actually running backwards.

A lot of the backwards time effects were very well done. The fight sequence in the free port with Washington and Pattinson was excellent...they were literally 'pulling punches'. And of course the other version of the same event near the end is very clever. The concept of guns catching bullets qas also fascinating.

I liked Branaghs villain, thought he nailed it. Washington and Pattinson were pretty good, and Debicki was good too. In fact a lot of time was spent on the character relationships and interaction, especially the 'triangle' of Washington Branagh and Debicki.

I thought the handful of major set pieces were pretty evenly spaced out and it wasn't overkill.

A big shoutout for the score too. I like that heavy, rhythmic, pulsating bass and synth sound. It really drove some of the action sequences. Very Tangerine Dream in places too.

I have one caveat though, which I have had since watching the trailers. I have often said that I find a lot of todays movies look far too cartoon with the overuse of CGI. But with Tenet I found the opposite. The effects looked so smooth and real that they came across as a little too subtle sometimes. That may be a contradiction I know, but thats how I felt.

I will also say that yes, some of the themes here involving time manipulation have been done before in Nolan's movies, and this time round they dont quite seem as original or clever as the earlier movies such as Memento, Inception and Interstellar.

That said, i did enjoy it with a few reservations, and definitely need to have a follow up viewing as there is so much going on.