TENET - Nolan at his most

Christopher Nolan back to making sci-fi movies is probably one of the best things to ever happen in 2020. Tenet stars John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, and Kenneth Branagh. The movie faced a lot of challenges amidst the COVID-19 pandemic but finally reached the audiences attempting to keep the movie business stay alive in spite of a crazy year.

We follow John David Washington, the protagonist who is a secret agent, recruited for a mission to avert an event that might end reality as we know it. Tenet is the most nonlinear of all his previous movies, a style which very few filmmakers have tried. Took me a couple of watches to get a brief idea of the plot. While one of the main complaints about the movie was the fact that it was so difficult to follow and understand, warranting multiple visits to understand it, the same remains one of the biggest perks for every Nolan fanboy out there. This is probably his most complicated movie to date, this opinion of mine might change after a couple more watches. 

He has never played with time the way he has in Tenet, even though we caught glimpses of the same in his previous movies, the most of it being in Interstellar, this is Nolan and his time fetish at their most here. I've seen it twice already and I still have plenty of questions, but I must admit the questions became fewer after the 2nd watch. My biggest concern was not even how complicated the plot was going to be, in fact, I was really looking forward to that because trying to understand a Nolan movie in some way makes you feel smarter and like you've achieved something, it feels like a science lesson with some spectacular visuals and mind-blowing music, I was afraid that the music part was going to be a huge let down due to Hans Zimmer's absence but Oscar-winning Ludwig Goransson has done a brilliant job with his scores in Tenet. 

Another huge complaint was that the dialogue couldn't be heard because the music took over and was extra loud, luckily, where I saw the movie there were subtitles, but this is something every Nolan movie has faced before so holding Ludwig responsible for this seems unfair. Two noteworthy tracks that are now part of my everyday playlist are 'Rainy Night in Tallinn' and 'Posterity'. Music is certainly one of the movie's biggest strengths and all my fears about the movie's absence of Zimmer were obsolete. 

The visuals were spectacular and the cinematography, top-notch, maybe the best I've ever seen until now even though there was one particular fight scene that felt a bit messy, to say the least. There is a lack of character development especially with the protagonist, nothing new there because the same issue has been there in a few of his previous movies as well, something which I'm hoping Chris works on in his future movies because repeating the same mistake every time doesn't justify its presence. Speaking of repeating mistakes, this movie has a female lead who is relevant to the plot who isn't dead, and does things that move the plot forward. Elizabeth's character in some ways is the main female lead in Tenet and that was actually a first for Nolan, having a significant female lead.

Nolan in some ways has always had a soft corner for India and Indian fans, something which makes our hearts skip a beat every time we notice it. We saw a bit of Rajasthan in the Dark Knight Rises, a small mention of Delhi in Interstellar, and this time, we see quite a bit of Mumbai and a lot of the veteran Bollywood actress, Dimple Kapadia. Not like he had to do a lot to impress Indian fans, he already had plenty of Indian fans before, this just felt like a huge bonus to every Indian Nolan fan out there. 

Overall, in the middle of this curse of a pandemic, watching Christopher Nolan's latest sci-fi thriller in IMAX was one of the few joys that 2020 had to offer. I am already looking forward to the future viewings and the hours of time that I'm going to sit and break my head trying to make sense of this plot. Tenet certainly lives up to the Nolan reputation and in no way does it feel like a downgrade to his previous movies, maybe not his best but I'm sure that Nolan personally enjoyed a lot while filming this one, its certainly Nolan playing the most with his favorite concept of all time, Time.

VERDICT:

Fan in me: 9.5/10

Critic in me: 8/10

Another noteworthy observation I had made during the course of the movie was that anyone who doubted Robert Pattinson as Bruce Wayne and Batman has now been proven wrong. Personally, I'm really looking forward to seeing his Batman, and the fact that both Nolan and Christian Bale approved of Pattinson's Batman is another thing that adds up to the hype, I'm sure that he's going to give us a Batman we can never forget.