Tenet (2020)

 

I’ll be honest: I didn’t quite follow the so-called science of Tenet. Several characters in the film attempt to explain “inverted entropy,” but my lack of interest in physics or whatever branch of science is involved prevented me from comprehending. Maybe it would have all played better had I had the opportunity to see the film in a large theater rather than at home since I might have felt a bit more immersed in the world of the film. However, I’m not sure that you have to really understand the “science” in order to understand that much of the film is about trying to stop a Russian oligarch, Andrei Sator (played by Kenneth Branagh in his most over-the-top mode), from obtaining a device that would allow him to reverse time itself and perhaps destroy Earth and all of its people. The film’s central character, known simply as The Protagonist (John David Washington)—a stunningly stupid name, really—is a former CIA agent who is now trying to stop Sator from gaining the maguffin of what appears to be a little trinket box. Washington’s character works with Neil (Robert Pattinson of Twilight fame), who meets The Protagonist in the future but has returned to the past to help him. Or something like that. Again, it’s a bit of a puzzle, and I’m certain that more careful viewers were able to follow all of the plot twists. I just found them unnecessarily muddled. Instead, I concentrated more upon the spectacular sequences that undoubtedly won the film the Oscar for Best Visual Effects. The opening sequence in a Kyiv opera house involves the rescue of an asset in the midst of the attempted theft of the entropy device. Later in the film, The Protagonist and Neil attempt to swipe the (a?) device from a very secure storage facility at an airport, and they use a full-sized plane to create a distraction. A sequence involving a series of fire trucks and police cars and passenger cars flipping over dazzles, especially when you twist back and watch events (and the vehicles) reverse themselves. Tenet features a lot of travel to beautiful locations, much the same as a James Bond film: Kyiv; Mumbai, India; Oslo, Norway; and the Amalfi Coast in Italy. Still, some of the aspects of the plot don’t quite hold up under intense scrutiny. I realize that The Protagonist reaches out to Kat (Elizabeth Debicki), Sator’s estranged wife, because that’s a convenient way to get into contact with Sator himself, but the business involving a faked Goya painting didn’t contribute anything to my understanding of the plot. Likewise, The Protagonist’s story about trying to help Sator get access to a large enough amount of plutonium to make an atomic weapon seems like a distraction given that Sator has much bigger plans than just one nuclear device. Tenet will probably be forever known as the biggest movie to be released (eventually) during the COVID-19 pandemic, and it suffered a great deal as a result. Many more of us might have experienced the big screen visuals and been even more impressed. It’s certainly a very stylish film in many ways, and aside from its impressive visual effects, it also features very sharp editing. Perhaps a revival screening in the future can turn me around, but the narrative doesn’t rise to the level of the visuals in Tenet.

Oscar Win: Best Achievement in Visual Effects

Other Oscar Nomination: Best Achievement in Production Design