FILM REVIEW
“Tenet”: Time-Bending Masterpiece or Misfire?
Inception’s unspoken sequel
Released in theaters before the arrival of coronavirus vaccines, many had hoped in September of 2020 that Tenet would be the movie that proved why theaters were still necessary. But in a world reeling from the first pandemic in a century, it never managed to achieve the acclaim it strived for. When compared with so many of Christopher Nolan’s previous films, its reception was fairly tepid.
Maybe it’s simply that the pandemic stifled the film’s ability to attain the phenomenon status that films like Memento, The Dark Knight, Inception, and Interstellar were able to reach. For me, though, it falls short of achieving the punch I’ve grown to expect from some of Nolan’s other films.
It’s certainly an excellent film, and all the hallmarks of Nolan’s other projects here are alive and well — from the spectacular writing to the temporal distortions to the spellbinding cinema and dynamic music score, composed by Ludwig Göransson.
Nolan’s unique flare for the directing of his films has been on display since before the turn of the millennium, but by the release of his 2010 blockbuster, Inception, it had fully congealed. The introspective, time-bending and multi-layered thriller was dense enough for most that it…
