Tenet

UK Release Date. 26 August 2020
Certification. PG-13
Running Time. 2 hours 30 mins
Director. Christopher Nolan
Cast. Kenneth Branagh, Michael Caine, Elizabeth Debicki, Robert Pattinson, Clémence Poésy, John David Washington.
Rating. 60%

Review.

Set aside his elusive debut feature Following, I suspect Tenet may be Christopher Nolan's weakest film to date. The film is an ambitious, sprawling science-fiction thriller in which the world as we know it is threatened by a technology that can invert objects and characters that can invert their passage through time. 

Trying to understand the mechanics of reverse entropy is a futile exercise. But time, time is a recurring theme for Christopher Nolan. The idea that our future selves can affect our present-day selves and lives trajectory is a concept that plays out across several other Nolan films - Memento, Interstellar and Inception.

As this is Christopher Nolan, Tenet is technically impressive and as stylish as ever, full of spectacular set pieces, gorgeous locations and superb cinematography, courtesy of Director of Photography, Hoyte van Hoytema. But the high cocept, convoluted plot is too impenetrable.  

In addition, the film is too cold and too sterile. The cast of John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki and Kenneth Branagh struggle to bring life to unengaging characters. Whilst Branagh's character Sator, a Russian arms dealer is both ruthless and calculating, his end goal is unbelievably vague.

Nolan's ambition should, of course, be lauded, but there's something about the end result that is ultimately underwhelming. A combination of weak dialogue, lifeless, two-dimensional characters and a rushed climax, the effects of which are diluted by battle against faceless foes. All of which doesn't make Tenet a bad film, just not Nolan's best.