Was Tenet Worth It? A Review

So, I recently went out and against all common sense went to a theater to watch Tenet. Now, I know what you may be thinking, is it not a little stupid to go out during a pandemic just to go see a movie? And you would be absolutely right, it is stupid. But if the world is going to end, I couldn’t be okay with the fact that the last movie I saw in theaters before the end was Sonic the Hedgehog.

So luckily for me, good ol’ Chris Nolan decided that the hill he was gonna die on was that Tenet was gonna come out in theaters everywhere. So the question becomes, was it worth it? Was all the work and effort to convince people to let theaters open up again to show this movie?

Eh.

Look, it's not a bad movie by any means, I think obviously Christopher Nolan is an experienced enough filmmaker that none of his movies are strictly going to be Bad, but Tenet was certainly not his best showing.

Which I was honestly surprised at, it seemed to be right up his alley. Nolan loves to make these sort of high concept action movies, allowing him to do some cool and unique things with the gimmicks the concept presents. And the idea of Time-foolery was perfect for that sort of thing. Now, Tenet did deliver on those fun action scenes, having a fight between someone going forward through time and someone else going backward is a treat to watch. The problem really comes out with the story.

The movie starts off on an okay foot, a decent little action opening establishing our main character as an experienced undercover agent for the CIA or something, some kind of spy stuff. And showing he would rather die than compromise the mission. Which we learn is the way that this agency, called Tenet, seems to recruit people.

A strong enough opening, our main character is well established and we are put right into the thick of things with him. But the problem with the movie really starts to present itself. Tenet as a movie is somehow both too willing, and not willing at all with the information about itself. For this first half of the movie, the majority of conversations tend to just be exposition dumps explaining the mechanics of the time stuff, or about what our main character is trying to do. And while that all comes across rather clearly, the way that the movie is paced and put together makes it all seem incredibly confusing.

John David Washington, who is literately just known as the Protagonist, is thrust into this crazy and wild world and learns that there is apparently a war with the future going on, and he just takes it all in stride.

I don’t think he once really takes the time to ask some basic questions about what is going on. And thus, the audience does not get any of those answers. I think the movie tries to justify this by having The Protagonist I guess just be used to all this super-spy stuff, and so he doesn't really have to ask any questions. He just knows where to go and what to do. But for me? I had no idea what was going on half the time. He just seemingly knows where he has to go and what to do.

And I think it was supposed to be on purpose? The movie’s editing and the pacing were strange enough that I am sure it was not something that was simply overlooked but was what Nolan wanted it to be like. I think the idea was that by the end everything was eventually supposed to make sense, and while that is partly true, it does not change the fact that for the first hour or so of the movie, the audience is going to sit there with little idea of what is going on.

Now eventually the movie does sort of settle down and actually gives the Protagonist an understandable goal. Meet this woman and learn about her husband, and it is with that relationship that the rest of the movie is centered on. Which begins to allow the movie to slow down a bit and be more digestible.

Now, about halfway through the movie, there is sort of the big reveal if you will, where it is shown that people too can be made to go backward in time. Which like I said earlier, is a cool idea and is executed rather well. And in seeing them go backward in time, some of the things that did not makes sense earlier, do start to piece themselves together.

But at least for me, the damage was already done. By the time the movie started to make sense, I had been to busy trying to figure out what was going on with the story, that I didn’t really find myself focusing on the characters involved with it. So the eventual climax lost a big part of its punch in my opinion.

All in all, it was an okay movie. It was fun to watch someone fight a rewind man, and the visuals that were created because of it was really cool. But the overall plot and story take too much of a hit early on to really recover. Overall, I am fairly lucky that I ended up being the only person in the theater when I went to go see it because I am not sure I would have really considered Tenet worth exposing myself otherwise.

At least it's not Sonic the Hedgehog.