Film: 'Tenet'

 

Not the significant event of a film I'd been counting on as a returning 'welcome back' gesture into a cinema, any cinema, after very nearly six months enforced absence. 

I've been a great fan of Christopher Nolan as director ever since 2000's 'Memento' which I'm sure would make an appearance in my '20 All-Time Favourite Films' list - as well as 'Insomnia' (2002) and 'Inception' (2010), this last being a certain entry in my fifty best. Yet this latest of his has had some remarkably good reviews, with more than one I've seen citing this as his best to date. Sorry, I can't agree.

For a film of 2 hrs 30 mins length one does expect a certain level of cohesion and cogency but I was, frankly, all at sea within minutes of the start. Just who were these characters? For whom were they working? What were they fighting over? That the entire world was at stake, I got, but the motives and plots behind the story remained a mystery to me throughout. To add to the confusion the final half hour or more is given over to a battle between two armies. Just who was fighting whom, God only knows! There was some race against time with thumping background score to keep us on the edge of our seats, but over what? Amid all the clamorous explosions, gunfire, as well as fist fights (and throwing near-at-hand objects at each other), most of the participants were for much of the time in head-to-foot camouflage gear, and helmeted and visored, so I got completely lost as to just who was who. 

An original feature of this film (we are given a number of illustrations of it in the film's earlier stages) is that in several scenes time goes both backwards and forwards simultaneously, the direction of travel depending on the character, not only in the combat scenes but also in an extended car chase with lots of crashes which, in reverse time mode, the vehicles 'de-crash' themselves. And in the culminating noisy confrontation, blown-up buildings reverse their demolition. Presumably such is reflected in the choice of a palindromic word as the film's title. But putting that aside, was the film confusing? You bet! And what was the point of having this time reversal thingy anyway?

The main character - and the principal 'goodie' - referred to simply as 'The Protagonist' is played by the likeable John David Washington (above, so good in Spike Lee's 'BlackKklansman' of 2018) though here he's as invincible and as quickly recovering from injury as 007 would himself be.

So we know that 'The Protagonist' is going to save the world as we can surmise from his otherwise blank name, but the rest of the cast - Elizabeth Debicki, and even Robert Pattinson and Aaron Taylor-Johnson - can they really be trusted as to which side they are actually on even if they are colleagues of the 'Protagonist'? But there's no such ambiguity as to Kenneth Branagh's character, a nasty, sadistic Russian oligarch and megalomaniac (Boo! Hissssss!) who'd easily give Ernst Stavro Blofeld a run for his money. In addition, Sir Michael Caine makes an early two-minute (max) cameo.

I'd been wishing that I'd taken the trouble to have seen this film on an Imax screen, which would have been possible with a little travelling, but I doubt if it would have changed my ultimate opinion of it. But what might have made a difference is that I saw it at a cinema which does not have the best sound quality, making yet more pronounced my frequent difficulty of understanding much of the dialogue. I wish I'd seen it subtitled which I could have done but would have meant going out in the dark which is not feasible nowadays. That should have cleared up quite a bit of the confusion I felt on what the hell it was all about ought. 

As you'd expect with this director, there are a number of visually impressive set-piece 'chapters', perhaps the most memorable being at the start in a crowded concert hall. However, I think that around two-thirds through a film which requires an amount of concentration, I was aware of my attention starting to flag and visual and aural fatigue gaining hold.

Despite 'Inception' also having itself many enigmatic strands, some never fully explained, I was at least glued to the screen and intrigued by what was happening throughout - and I paid to see it again on a cinema screen. Not so with 'Tenet'........6.

(IMDb................8 / Rott.Toms...........4.4 out of 5 )