Thursday, June 3, 2021

My Review of TENET: Nolan Continues His Steady Decline


Christopher Nolan is arguably the "hottest" and most famous director in Hollywood right now. Sure, we still have the greats like Martin Scorsese and Steven Spielberg, but Nolan - at 50 years old - is still considered to be in the middle of his filmmaking prime. 

TENET had a $200 million budget. As most studios dump their big bucks on superhero franchises and Fast and the Furious type stuff, Nolan seems to be the only director left who can command whatever dollar amount he needs. There is no franchise, here. It's the name. A Christopher Nolan film can get whatever it needs. 

And yet, as Nolan's star consistently rises and the budgets get bigger and bigger, I feel his work getting consistently worse. It all started so promising with excellent films like MEMENTO and INSOMNIA. These were smaller films. Tighter films. Better films. 

As the budgets continue to increase, you can feel Nolan putting extra pressure on himself. The ideas have to be massive. The stakes have to continue to get higher and higher - but to me, that isn't the mark of a great film. It's not about saving the world, or blowing shit up or one-upping yourself. To me, a great film equals two things: Do I care about the characters and am I invested in the story, start to finish?

And once again, this is where Nolan falls way short with TENET. We have some wacky shit going on here: inverted bullets, inverted explosions, inverted timelines... but is The Protagonist (John David Washington) as compelling a lead as Will Dormer in INSOMNIA (Al Pacino) or Leonard in MEMENTO (Guy Pearce)? No hesitation, here: the answer is a resounding NO. 

With TENET, once again it just feels like Nolan is trying to outthink himself, and his audience for that matter. We always seem to get these backstories with Nolan: "It took him 10 years to think of this" or "it took him five years to flesh this one idea out," blah blah blah. That's building a legend. That's good publicity. But what are "mindbenders" like INCEPTION and TENET when you really think about them?

INCEPTION is about a dream, within a dream, within a dream. TENET is about saving the world from extinction. And alotta inverted stuff. 

If you make things overly confusing, the word "genius" seems to get thrown around. We hear those other magic words like "visionary" and "brilliant", too. But I gotta be honest with you - I see right through that. Nolan starts with one or two big ideas, then struggles for years to fill in the gaps. That's emptiness. To me, that's not the mark of good storytelling. 

So, where's the good in TENET? Well, Kenneth Branagh makes for a great villain in Andrei Sator, the trillionaire who holds the key to ending the world. I remember Branagh coming up, as a Shakespeare expert and enthusiast on both stage and film. He made the best Hamlet on film, and his version of Much Ado About Nothing was quite a delight. But here he is getting a bigger paycheck in a much bigger film. And this is what I mean about character - The Protagonist, Neil (Robert Pattinson) and Kat (Elizabeth Debicki) are probably the leads of TENET, but Branagh steals the show without breaking a sweat. If you tell me he isn't the most memorable character in this film, then you were watching a different movie. 

Of course, some of the special effects were really cool. I will let you see them for yourself, mostly. The one I remember most is a building that explodes in reverse, top to bottom then bottom to top. Wacky stuff. A real Nolan trademark. 

But I'm sorry... this movie is empty. I've always felt and written that INCEPTION was empty too, but at least there was more entertainment value there. That's what you get when you have Leonardo Di Caprio and Tom Hardy elevating questionable stuff. But I dunno about John Washington. And Denzel Washington is probably my favorite actor of all time. I liked John a lot better in BLACKKKLANSMAN, maybe because Spike Lee allowed him to showcase more personality and pizazz. He starts off strong in TENET, but then the stupid machinations of the plot stifle a performance that had initial potential. Maybe, again, this is on Nolan. Maybe he needs to keep his eye on the ball more. If we don't consistently care about the characters, why do we care about the resolution of your movie?

In the end, I suppose I could go on forever. But what's the point? You get the idea. Christopher Nolan has lost sight of what it means to make a great film - bigger isn't always better. Tighten up; make us care about the characters. Get us invested, all the way through. Maybe cut down from 2 and a half pointless hours?

You know where this is going...

FRASCELLA'S SCORE: 4.5 out of 10

MY UP-TO-DATE ARCHIVE OF ALL REVIEWS AND RECENT MOVIES SEEN

The Irishman (9.5/10)
Up in the Air (9.5/10)
Steve Jobs (9.5/10)
Django Unchained (9.5/10) 
Collateral (9.5/10)
No Country for Old Men (9.5/10)
The Wrestler (9.5/10)
Ex Machina (9.5/10)
Memento (9.5/10)
Sin City (9.5/10)
Her (9.5/10)
The Drop (9.5/10)
Zodiac (9.5/10)
Kramer vs. Kramer (9.5/10)
Margin Call (9.5/10)
A Star is Born (9.5/10)
Office Space (9/10)
The Hateful Eight (9/10) - Review Coming Soon
Marriage Story (9/10)
Hannah and Her Sisters (9/10)
Mystic River (9/10)
L.A. Confidential (9/10)
Lady Bird (9/10)
Stay (9/10)
Gone Girl (9/10)
Nocturnal Animals (9/10)
45 Years (9/10)
The Edge of Seventeen (9/10)
Bernie (9/10)
Lucky Number Slevin (9/10)
War Dogs (8.5/10)
The Founder (8.5/10)
Jackie Brown (8.5/10) - Future Review
In Bruges (8.5/10)
Split (8.5/10)
Bad Moms (8.5/10)
Basquiat (8.5/10)
Love, Actually (8.5/10)
Moonlight (8/10)
Citizen Kane (8/10)
Pretty Woman (8/10)
Kill Bill: Vol. 1 (7.5/10) - No Review Available
Kill Bill: Vol. 2 (7.5/10) - No Review Available
Joker (7.5/10)
Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri (7.5/10)
The Revenant (7.5/10)
The Good Shepherd (7.5/10)
The Shallows (7.5/10)
Focus (7.5/10) 
The Night Before (7.5/10)
The Walk (7/10)
Mank (7/10)
10 Cloverfield Lane (7/10)
Loving (7/10) - No review available
Death Proof (7/10) - No review available
Hail, Caesar! (7/10) - No review available
Escape Room (7/10)
Crazy, Not Insane (7/10) - No review available 
Once Upon a Time... In Hollywood (6.5/10)
A Most Violent Year (6.5/10) - No review available
The Pixar Story (6.5/10) - No review available 
They'll Love Me When I'm Dead (6.5/10)
The Shape of Water (6/10) - discussed in this review
The Boy (6/10) - No review available
The Accountant (6/10) - No review available
Bridge of Spies (6/10) - No review available
The Firm (6/10) - No review available
Blaze (6/10) - No review available 
Muhammad Ali: Say My Name (6/10) - No review available
Joy (5.5/10)
Taking Lives (5.5/10) - No review available
La La Land (5.5/10)
Pulp Fiction (5.5/10) - Future Review
Greenland (5.5/10) - No review available
Belichick and Saban: The Art of Coaching (5.5/10)
The Visit (5/10) - discussed in this review
The Mule (5/10) - No review available
13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi (5/10)
Make Love Great Again (5/10) - No review available
Molly's Game (5/10)
Set It Up (5/10)
Made You Look: A True Story About Fake Art (5/10) - No review available 
Get a Job (5/10) - No review available
The Interpreter (5/10) - No review available
Eric Clapton: Life in 12 Bars (5/10) - No review available
Reservoir Dogs (4.5/10) - Future Review
Tenet (4.5/10)
Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates (4.5/10) - No review available
Brooklyn (4.5/10) - discussed in this review, and this review
Ocean's 8 (4/10)
Alex Cross (4/10) - No review available 
Homefront (4/10) - No review available 
Everything Must Go (4/10) - No review available
Why Him? (3.5/10) - No review available
The Program (3/10)
Open Water 3: Cage Dive (3/10) - No review available
Pitch Perfect 3 (2/10)
Shut In (2/10) - No review available
Premonition (2/10) - No review available
Inside Man: Most Wanted (2/10) - No review available 
Rings (1.5/10)
Mother's Day (1.5/10)
I'll Always Know What You Did Last Summer (0/10) - No review available

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