Boy, do I miss movie theaters. If
there ever was a type of movie that necessitated big screen viewing, it would
be a Christopher Nolan movie (The Dark Knight, Inception, Dunkirk). He
specializes in IMAX photography and elaborate action sequences. He has not made
a small movie for over a decade, the last being The Prestige in 2006.
When I set out to watch Tenet, an original spy thriller (as opposed to
the 26th installment of James Bond or the 8th Mission
Impossible which was itself a remake of a TV series), I tried to see it on the
largest screen possible, a big TV at a friend’s house. Terrible choice. Phones
rang, people talked throughout, a young child spent half the time screaming and
running around. It was hard to concentrate. By the second half of the movie, I
had no idea what was going on.
Recently, I tried to see it again,
late at night and very few other people around. Unfortunately, I still cannot say
I completely understand the movie. I guestimate I am about 2/3rds into understanding.
It is complicated. The downside of originality of course is that you are
showing something new.
Tenet involves objects with
reversed entropy. They are inverted in time. Now, the way human’s experience entropy
is the progression of time in the presence and always going forward. When an
object is inverted, it appears to the human to be going backwards in time. A
sort of helpful example is an inverted wall that holds many inverted bullets. A
character known only as the Protagonist (“John David Washington”) aims a gun at
the inverted wall and the inverted bullet is shot out of the walled and is caught
by the gun in the Protagonist’s hand. That is as simple as the temporal acrobatics
get. Other temporal acrobatics include: fistfights, car chases, a heist, a
military operation known as a temporal pincer move. These are incredible sight,
but underneath the surface there remains a nagging question: What on earth am I
watching?
I think a large problem this movie
has is not that it introduces this wacky idea about inverted entropy, it is
that the rest of the story is highly obscure. For instance, we do not know the
main character’s name or anything about him. We do no know who is sending these
inverted objects back through time or why they are doing so. The movie globetrots
around the planet from London, to India, to Monaco, to Russia. It is hard to
get a solid footing at any one place. All the characters are new and they speak
like spies, that is, in vaguely threatening tones. I like to think I am a perceptive
viewer, and I take as evidence that my understanding of previous Christopher
Nolan films with their myriad temporal and structural complexities. Figuring
out the puzzle is something I usually enjoy. Tenet is just one level too much. There
are times when I think about this movie, and I remember a scene that doesn’t
quite make sense and I’m not sure if there is an explanation somewhere or is it
just sloppy storytelling and there actually is no explanation, perhaps the opening
scene which involved an inverted bullet. Am I too know where that inverted
bullet comes from? How did it get there? Now, I have seen the movie twice, and
I still am not certain of it. I think two viewings are enough to conclude a
movie is indeed confusing and not merely complex.
A fun thing about Christopher
Nolan movies is that they sometimes are windows into the toys of the very very
rich. I recall seeing Inception and being impressed very expensive suits
of everyone in the first class section of the international flight. Here, we
are introduced to a “Freeport”, which is where rich people store paintings to
avoid taxes. Robert Pattinson walks around it in a very expensive suit and looks
more adult than I have ever seen him.
The bad guy leaves something to be
desired. He is supposed to be a nefarious Russian oligarch but is played by
Kenneth Branagh. Now, I know I’m supposed to be impressed by the reputation of
Branagh, but I confess to not really liking him too much in anything besides Henry
V, which was in the 1980s. His Shakespeare adaptations are poor and I
refuse to see him embody Hercule Poirot. Here, he is kind just too soft and flabby
to really have much of a nefarious screen presence. Of course, he is not helped
by the confusing narrative. The Russian oligarch has a supermodel wife played
by Elizabeth Dibecki. This woman is too tall. I’m not sure she is actually that
tal. I think the movie may have added some inches. Either way, not my thing. As
stated before, Robert Pattinson looks the part in this movie. John David
Washington, as the protagonist, does a decent job. His character is a bit of a blank
slate, so not much acting is required, but he does what is required in the
action sequences, particularly the bit where he has a fist-fight with an
inverted antagonist.
I can’t really recommend TENET
other than to say, if you do see, try to see it in a theater. This is a movie
that will be definitely worse seen at home.
