Review: Tenet is a chaotic, mind-boggling trip through time

DISCLAIMER: Tenet has released in theaters during a global pandemic. While some countries are doing better than others, America is still severely struggling. I can not recommend you go to a theater to see Tenet in good conscience. If you choose to, please social distance, wear a mask, and read your local theater’s protocols.

Time has been weaponized. It is being manipulated in dangerous ways that could bring the world to the brink of World War III. This new way to wield time allows it to run simultaneously forwards and backwards. It’s like a form of time travel but it still intersects with our current timeline. Imagine instead of a portal, you had to physically move yourself through space to go back in time.

The Protagonist (John David Washington) is tasked with using this same time manipulation to prevent this sinister plot. That’s really about as simple as I can explain the premise of Tenet without spoiling things.

Tenet is probably director Christopher Nolan’s most complex and ambitious film to date. It’s like Inception meets Memento with a dash of James Bond thrown in for good measure. There’s this blend of classy espionage with luxury suits mixed with Nolan’s preference for abstract sci-fi concepts.

It keeps a pretty breakneck pace, sometimes moving from one location to the next a bit too quickly. But because it moves at such speed, Tenet maintains this feeling of confidence and veracity in its complicated story.

There’s a lot to digest in this movie but you won’t think “What the hell did I just watch?” Nolan has become a pro at executing pretty complicated stories in comprehensive ways. On a visual level, it can feel like overload at first but once you start to learn the mechanics of the film, it becomes this wild trip.

The film does a lot to slowly ease you into all of it. By going from simple one-on-one fist fights to full blown car chases, it gradually raises its stakes but helps you also learn how to understand its language. There are still lingering pieces and specifics I’m chewing on but the core story is delivered in a concise way that’s relatively easy to follow.

There are also plenty of nuggets in the movie that only became clear hours after I had left the theater. I imagine many of these details will make for incredibly rewarding rewatches. Tenet once again proves that Nolan is a master of his craft. He has weaved this story in such a way that it’s hard to imagine this movie being remotely good in literally anyone else’s hands.

It’s something only Christopher Nolan could have made, it’s uniquely him. It’s a mixture of all of his learnings from his past filmography. From telling complex stories to high-stakes action, it’s Nolan at the peak of his craft.

In a lot of his previous movies, he’s able to do big setpieces with confidence. Where he has almost always lacked is hand-to-hand fights, something far more intimate. He rectifies this with Tenet by creating brutal yet electrifying action. In the first hand-to-hand scene, he demonstrates very quickly that he has listened and knows what he’s doing.

By leaning into it so heavily, it later allows for some of the most tense action I’ve seen in a while. Almost every major action beat had me holding my breath and slouching back in my seat with anxiety. The rules of the film allow for some of the most creative action I’ve ever seen in a film. I can’t really put into words as it’s an incredibly visual film but there were moments that made my eyes widen. It gave me this feeling of amazement and wonder that few other films can deliver.

Despite my wonder and enjoyment, there is a significant issue with Tenet and it’s a technical one. After looking into it and speaking to a number of people, I can say Tenet has a major sound problem. This may be resolved by the home release but I genuinely thought I became hard of hearing since the last time I was in a movie theater.

The overwhelming majority of dialogue in Tenet is near incomprehensible. The explosions, score, and other factors drown out all the words. You might here every other word in a sentence but by the time you’re in the second half of the movie, it’s a difficult to keep up. I was able to keep up simply by just trying to track some visual cues but for the most part, it’s a garbled nightmare. On the other hand, the gunshots, explosions, and other bombastic noises sound incredible because that seems to be all the sound mixers focused on.

The Verdict

Tenet is a stimulating masterclass in action movie filmmaking. Christopher Nolan creates a complex yet sleek narrative to allow for some of the most inventive action ever put to screen. There’s nothing like it and it’s something only he could pull off at this level. The only downside is that if you’re hoping to easily follow along, the film’s sound mixing may prevent you from doing so.