Tenet Movie Review
The Sator Square: Opera, Sator, TENET. This ancient square from the 1st century AD is surrounded by mystery. Some think it may have been a covert way for Christians to communicate. But no one is certain. To this day the square remains an enigma.
Without spoiling the movie, it takes the Sator square and builds a slightly futuristic narrative around it. A movie where both TIME and COMMUNICATION (two repeated themes for Nolan) are of the essence.
What I loved:
THE CONCEPT - Nolan always raises the bar with his concepts. I love a director who puts in the research, painstakingly pours over the script, and then makes a challenging concept into a neatly packaged movie. I’d rather have a film that raises the bar and challenges my thinking then one that doesn’t. I’m a Sean Connery James Bond fan. And this movie felt James Bondish but with a far more interesting and mind bending concept and dynamic.
THE CINEMATOGRAPHY - I didn’t get to see the movie in it’s full IMAX 70mm glory, but I plan to. Something about a lot of these shots reminded me of Hitchcock’s North by Northwest and Vertigo. Wide, breathtaking visuals and backgrounds.
THE CAST - I liked the cast. They were convincing in their roles. I thought Robert Pattinson shined with charm in particular.
What I didn’t like:
THE EXPOSITION - the explanations by the characters of the plot was overdone. Way more than usual. It was fast paced, flowing out like a fire hydrant. Too much was said. I think there was too much explanation crammed and jammed in. I would’ve liked to have seen it dialed back and slowed down so that we could digest it more. In some instances LESS is MORE and this would’ve been a good instance for that.
THE EMOTION - interstellar was emotional, Dunkirk was emotional, inception, though more plot driven, still contained an emotional attachment. This movie had a much greater emotional distance. The plot was engaging but the emotional connection between the characters themselves and the characters and the audience wasn’t compelling.
THE EXECUTION - the concept is amazingly cool. The plot line and the story wasn’t horribly difficult to follow. I loved the historical connections with the Cold War and Sator square. I also loved the idea that the worlds greatest threat isn’t nuclear but temporal warefare. But certain points of exposition and action were clunky and confusing. Especially the ending sequence. It was hard to tell exactly what was happening and who was doing what without watching the sequence at least 3-4 more times. Without spoiling it, I also wish the ending would’ve been at a different location. I was hoping for a full palindrome experience.
While I plan to give a full thematic analysis down the road, I’ll wait til the movie is less vulnerable to spoilers. But I did see a lot of interesting connections to the biblical concepts of God, time, free will/predestination, and hero/protagonist.