{"id":47,"date":"2021-12-04T19:41:01","date_gmt":"2021-12-04T19:41:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/joshtest04.wordpress.com\/2021\/12\/04\/tenet\/"},"modified":"2025-05-05T20:24:04","modified_gmt":"2025-05-05T19:24:04","slug":"tenet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fevered.earth\/index.php\/2021\/12\/04\/tenet\/","title":{"rendered":"Tenet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Tempting to say \u201cInception done right\u201d, if that\u2019s fair. Your tolerance may vary based on how able you are to keep up with the near-incessant rattling off of plot details in low voices\u200a\u2014\u200awhich comes to an apparently intentional breaking point in the finale\u200a\u2014\u200abut if all else fails it\u2019ll definitely support a rewatch. John David Washington and Robert Pattinson are up to the challenge of keeping it ticking over, both with a sort of pleasant, easy charisma, and they\u2019re aided by a relentless, frenetic pace to the action for the bulk of the film.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inception is increasingly hamstrung as it goes along by Nolan\u2019s bloody-minded refusal to approach camp or psychedelia in his film entirely about dream-worlds. Which is not to say he refuses to get silly with it, just that what Dark Knight Rises does for \u201csome days you just can\u2019t get rid of a bomb\u201d, Inception does for all of dreams. The world of Tenet, pegged as it is to the world of James Bond spy thrillers, is a much better match for Nolan\u2019s pared-down aesthetic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The video-game overtones of Inception make a reappearance here too, with the first pass through the tax haven vault following impeccable video game logic, up to the dispensing of a dual boss fight against a mysterious opponent. The motif makes a slightly less successful appearance at the climax of the film, where we\u2019re forced to wait at a locked grille while the villain monologues over a PA.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The film\u2019s commitment to the forwards\/backwards theme is complete, with Branagh\u2019s villain beginning the film attempting to have the protagonist killed, progressing from there to being deceived into having him to dinner, and departing the film as the image of the consummate family man (billionaire). Are we meant to think that his silver suicide pill is identical to the one that does not kill the protagonist at the start of the film? In that case, it\u2019s only the presence of Debicki\u2019s vengeful wife which allows him to be killed at all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The most significant complaint I\u2019d level is that the final action sequence is both a little confused\u200a\u2014\u200aa showcase for forward\/backward thinking that doesn\u2019t quite linger long enough on the logic of any given part, and centred around the progress of protagonists who are difficult to pick out under their military gear. I assume it all makes sense in retrospect, but it lacks the finely tuned amping up that characterises the earlier action sequences\u200a\u2014\u200adrip feeding a logical progression of increase in scope as we move from backwards bullets to backwards guns to backwards people to backwards plans.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s all very (brace for it) Steven Moffat, and one wonders about the link there\u200a\u2014\u200anot least the extremely Doctor Who finale for Pattinson\u2019s character. Who and Bond have a long history of mixing and matching that\u2019s too interesting to explain here but it\u2019s absolutely a sensible leap for someone making a sci-fi Bond. And of course they do little else the whole film long than reversing the polarity of things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The costuming is pristine at every point, as you might hope. Special mention as well to the perfectly scored stamp on a cello in the opening sequence. It would have been nice to see this in a cinema\u200a\u2014\u200ahopefully the opportunity will present itself at some point in a post-COVID world.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Tempting to say \u201cInception done right\u201d, if that\u2019s fair. Your tolerance may vary based on how able you are to keep up with the near-incessant rattling off of plot details in low voices\u200a\u2014\u200awhich comes to an apparently intentional breaking point in the finale\u200a\u2014\u200abut if all else fails it\u2019ll definitely support a rewatch. John David Washington […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":2,"footnotes":""},"categories":[94,96],"tags":[18,19,20],"class_list":["post-47","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article","category-media-criticism","tag-movie-review","tag-movies","tag-tenet-2020"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fevered.earth\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fevered.earth\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fevered.earth\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fevered.earth\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fevered.earth\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fevered.earth\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":126,"href":"https:\/\/fevered.earth\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47\/revisions\/126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fevered.earth\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fevered.earth\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fevered.earth\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}