“It’s like Inception, Morty, so if it’s confusing and stupid, then so is everyone’s favorite movie.”
– Rick Sánchez
Tenet could have been an absurdist masterpiece, like The Naked Gun or The Pink Panther, if only it didn’t take itself so fucking seriously. Written and directed as it was by Christopher Nolan, however, Tenet has no choice but to be long, boring, pretentious, and deliberately complicated to mask the fact that it makes exactly zero fucking sense. In other words, it’s pure, unadulterated Nolan.
The plot, such as it is, is set in motion by something called “inverted bullets,” which can go back in time (to put it in perspective, this is even more fucking retarded than the ‘curving’ bullets from Wanted). At first no one knows where these retrograde bullets come from. My theory is that they escaped from the “Freak on a Leash” music video.
The film opens with a shootout at an opera house in Kiev. There are two sides, but no indication whatsoever as to why exactly they are shooting at each other. Meanwhile, the opera-goers must be under the impression that the shooting is part of the show, because everyone remains calmly in their seats. Wouldn’t the first, instinctive reaction be to get up and run like hell? The terrorists, if that’s what they are, don’t even have to resort to the trusty “nobody move!”
It turns out that all of this is nothing more than a test for the Protagonist (John David Washington). That’s right; Tenet’s protagonist is identified as “The Protagonist” —and not even just in the credits; I think another character actually calls him that at least once.
But anyway, that it was a test might explain the apathy of the supposed hostages, but then why put them to sleep via a gas that is released through the building’s vents? This gas, by the way, is so quick and effective that everyone not wearing a mask is knocked unconscious at precisely the same time.
Other stultifying moments include an upward bungee jump with Edward Cullen, and a fight in a kitchen wherein a grater is used as a weapon — not too shabby, but still not in the same league as JCVD’s fight with the Penguins’ mascot in Sudden Death. Moreover, it’s not made clear whether the grater also works in reverse. Trust me, in a movie as stupid as this, that counts as a valid question.
Tenet’s only saving grace is Kenneth Branagh as villain Andrei Sator (I guess ‘The Antagonist’ would have been a little too on the nose?). Branagh is mostly phoning it in, but the simplicity and one-dimensionality that he brings to the character is a actually a breath of fresh air in the complex-for-the-sake-of-complexity world of Nolan.
Furthermore, behind Sator’s deadpan mask and bored monotone lurks a wild beast, and when Branagh unleashes it, it’s an spectacle both beautiful and terrifying. Unfortunately, Nolan manages to crap all over the character, forcing him to utter such non-threatening clichés as, “if you’re not mine, you’re not going to belong to anyone.” Yawn.
Like virtually all stories that revolve around time travel, Tenet lacks an urgent goal. What we have here is a self-fulfilling prophecy; what was is, and what is will be, and nothing and no one can change that, so why the hell bother?
Tenet is like one of the mid-ocean wind turbines we see early in the movie — it looks cool, impressive even, but it’s monolithic and impenetrable; it makes noise, but it doesn’t say anything. All things considered, Tenet is the proverbial tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.
90% of Everything is Crap 