Review | ‘Tenet’ movie experience, interrupted
Christopher Nolan’s latest blockbuster “Tenet” hit theaters Sept. 3. Despite the pandemic, it was the third highest-grossing film of 2020. Unsplash
I would like to preface this review with the information that I have not seen “Tenet” in its entirety (more on that later).
As a film production major and proud student of the Dodge College of Film and Media Arts, I would like to formally apologize for the fact that, to this day, the last film I had the chance to see in theaters was “Sonic The Hedgehog.”
Had I known that only a few weeks later, universities and businesses around the world would begin shutting down, perhaps I would’ve picked something – no, anything – else to go out on. Unfortunately, unlike in “Tenet,” time only moves forward. So, after quarantining for months on end, when I returned to Orange County in late August, I was ecstatic to hear that AMC Theatres would be opening up for limited screenings.
I decided to hold off on going back until Christopher Nolan’s highly anticipated sci-fi thriller “Tenet” was set to release Sept. 3. As a longtime Nolan fan, it pained me to wait and avoid spoilers for the few weeks that followed its release. Despite how excited I was to finally sit down in a theater, attending a packed opening-night screening didn’t seem like the best idea.
Although I was cautiously optimistic about going back to theaters during a pandemic, I was pleasantly surprised when I found there were only a handful of other audience members along for the ride. Everything seemed like it was going right. I had a great seat in an empty theater and a full night to watch and dissect one of my favorite filmmakers’ newest releases. When the lights finally went down, I felt like I was actually home for the first time in months.
“Tenet” opens with an incredibly gripping sequence that immediately brought me back to the first time I saw Nolan’s “The Dark Knight.” The unnamed protagonist, played by John David Washington, acts as an undercover CIA agent tasked with … something?
I’ll admit, my memory of the plot is hazy at best. My movie-watching experience, unfortunately, was cut short by another appreciator of the arts who – and don’t ask me why – felt the need to rip a fire extinguisher out of the wall and verbally berate the theater employees. Eventually, because he clearly determined his actions weren’t already enough of an inconvenience, the unnamed Orange County resident then pulled the fire alarm, causing every projector in the theater to shut off and every paying customer to leave until the fire department arrived.
As for my actual movie review, I felt like it would be a little disingenuous to have a fully fleshed out opinion on something I haven’t even finished watching. That said, I’m going to state my opinion anyway so this actually counts as a review.
For longtime fans, this film will probably hit all the familiar notes one can expect from Nolan. It has everything: unique ideas, visceral action sequences, mind-bending visuals and a plot that leaves viewers guessing right up until they go on YouTube and look up “Tenet ending explained.”
Everything about this movie is textbook Nolan. Unfortunately, that brings all the typical shortcomings that frequent critics of his films tend to harp on. “Tenet” is scored by long-time collaborator Hans Zimmer and though the film’s sound is engaging and intense, a lot of the already sparse expository dialogue becomes lost in the fray. That’s perhaps the fatal flaw with (what I saw of) “Tenet”; the muddled dialogue became almost as much of a hindrance to my understanding of the film as the dipsomaniac who sent everyone home early for the night.
Overall, I genuinely enjoyed “Tenet.” Even in spite of its shortcomings and the screening being unexpectedly cut short, I might be heading back to theaters to give it another go – even if it ends up being a screening with closed captioning.
