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Critic Reviews
"For me, Tenet is preposterous in the tradition of Boorman’s Point Blank, or even Antonioni’s Zabriskie Point, a deadpan jeu d’esprit, a cerebral cadenza, a deadpan flourish of crazy implausibility – but supercharged with steroidal energy and imagination."
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"Tenet is a practically perfect (re)introduction to the big screen. Whether audiences are ready – where safe – to return to cinemas en masse is another question entirely. Certainly, Tenet’s a more challenging film than some may be comfortable with after a five-month absence, but this is an all-too-rare example of a master filmmaker putting everything on the table with, you sense, not a modicum of his vision compromised. The stakes have never been higher, but Tenet is exactly the film cinemas need right now."
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"The depth, subtlety and wit of Pattinson and Debicki’s performances only becomes fully apparent once you know where Tenet is going, or perhaps that should be where it’s been. Still confused? Don’t be. Or rather do be, and savour it. This is a film that will cause many to throw up their hands in bamboozlement – and many more, I hope, to clasp theirs in awe and delight."
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"Tenet is a film that will stay with you forever from its first scene, one that will tempt you to revisit it in part or as a whole, and that really tells you what it is: a masterpiece."
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"A gorgeous, violent, brilliant puzzle box of a movie that relishes in how convoluted it is, and pays off every second of attention."
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"The film contains some of Nolan’s most ambitious action sequences to-date but one wonders whether the plot density – a not inconsiderable obstacle for some who prefer not to devote their undivided attention for 2 ½ hours – might prove to be problematic. "
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"Tenet reaches for cinematic greatness and, though it doesn’t quite reach that lofty goal, it’s the kind of film that reminds us of the magic of the moviegoing experience."
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"Tenet is not so much a decipherable thriller as it is an extreme exercise in reverse-engineered narrative incomprehensibility – the cinematic equivalent of a half-baked pretzel, its goopy symmetrical loops superficial yet delicious all the same."
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"It’s breathtaking to watch the director work on such a grand scale, but the humans within his film do sometimes get lost. For all Nolan’s metaphysical mastery, there’s an undeniable coldness to his twilight world."
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"Tenet is a fascinating and exciting sci-fi thriller bolstered by Nolan's grand vision for action and strong performances from the cast."
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"Tenet is basically a series of heists—smaller puzzle boxes within the larger one—which means while the viewer may not understand exactly what’s going on big picture, they will find the immediate action briskly paced and compellingly presented."
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"Tenet is not Christopher Nolan’s masterpiece, but it is another thrilling entry into his canon. In a world where blockbuster cinema is dominated by franchises and sequels, it serves as an accomplished demonstration of the pleasures of unconnected and non-serialised original storytelling. But while it does tread new ground, Tenet is the ‘safest’ film from Christopher Nolan in some years. Following two recent ambitious movies from the filmmaker, Tenet feels a little conservative, as if Nolan’s style is a franchise rather than a framework. Despite this, it remains more interesting than most other tentpole movies and acts as a beacon for the director’s strengths."
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"The film is undeniably enjoyable, but its giddy grandiosity only serves to highlight the brittleness of its purported braininess."
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"Tenet is no holy grail, but for all its stern, solemn posing, it’s dizzy, expensive, bang-up entertainment of both the old and new school."
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"Once again seizing control of the medium, Nolan attempts to alter the fabric of reality, or at least blow the roof off the multiplexes. Big, bold, baffling and bonkers."
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"It’s slam-bang action adventure that pretty much answers the question, “What if Christopher Nolan made a James Bond film?”"
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"Tenet lacks the elegant mastery of “Dunkirk” or the cosmic soulfulness of “Interstellar,” but it has a darkly grand geometry."
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"Tenet is as much mind-challenging, action-packed fun as sitting in cinema wearing a mask for two and a half hours can be."
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"If Tenet can be a hard movie to engage with emotionally or even comprehend narratively, that doesn't take away from its craftsmanship on a technical level. It’s an impressive film simply to experience, bombarding the viewer with bombastic sound design and gorgeous widescreen cinematography by Hoyte van Hoytema. "
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"Aesthetically—accompanied by Ludwig Göransson’s aggressively throbbing score—Tenet is the cinematic spectacle you’ve imagined...The plot, however, is where things start to falter. Tenet is as convoluted—if not more so—than Inception or Interstellar, and its tangled narrative occasionally fails to completely unknot itself (although that may be the point)."
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"No other artform could quite present such a collision of time, place, idea and emotion, and it’s clear that Nolan’s pure intent is to give us the utmost of what this medium can uniquely provide. At its best this is a ride that manages to be viscerally thrilling while still being emotionally and intellectually engaging, all in ways that are truly, uniquely cinematic. In other words, say what you will about the tenets of Tenet, at least it has an ethos."
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"Even at their most bewildering, the raw imagination and distinctive imagery on display are always thrilling."
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"Tenet makes you feel floaty, mesmerized and, to an extent, soothed by its spectacle — but also so cloudy in the head that the only option is to relax and let it blow your mind around like a balloon, buffeted by seaside breezes and hot air."
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"Tenet is as generous as any Bond when it comes to a big-buck opening sequence and regularly-scheduled, muscular set pieces. If anything, it showers the viewer with too much, over-balancing a ticking-time-clock finale which is only saved by Elizabeth Debicki’s raw acting talent."
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"It’s basically espionage adventure, but with a science fiction backbone: Nolan ups the ante on “Mission: Impossible” by making the impossibility not just physical but quantum physical. And he goes about it expertly, bullishly and with giddily perverse intent to bewilder."
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"Sprawling and ambitious, flawed yet admirable, failure and success concurrently reside in every minute of Tenet. A technical feat but a narrative dud."
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"There are good reasons for an action film to be two-and-a-half hours long. Having to devote dozens of extra pages of dialogue to constantly explaining itself isn’t one of them."
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"Tenet is, as breathless as it can feel in its best bits, ultimately, no more and no less than a consummately arranged film about a group of people who arrive, get the job done with enormous skill and at great expense, and leave. "
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"Yes, this stuff is cool. It is also massively complex, presented with a straight face via a script that nevertheless winks at The Protagonist’s — and our — utter confusion as Tenet's byzantine plot unfolds."
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"It’s exhilarating, in a “Fast & Furious” sort of way, especially as so many of the stunts are done for real rather than with CGI. It helps, too, that the swaggering Washington and the smirking Pattinson make a likable double act. But it all happens so quickly, with such brief explanations and so little breathing space, that the story is tough to follow, and therefore tough to care about."
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"Moviemaking doesn’t come any tauter or with more velocity. But that confusion is a warning. It’s going to apply to the entire movie; and the longer “Tenet” lasts, the more of an issue confusion becomes."
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"As it turns out, “Don’t try to understand it, feel it” is mixed advice. Viewers won’t be able to fully understand Tenet’s dialogue, and they’re likely to have the same problem in trying to understand its convoluted plot. But there isn’t much there to feel, either, making the experience feel more like a math exam than a mesmerizing action film."
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"There’s a chilliness to Tenet that I haven’t felt in his previous work. The stakes, presumably, couldn’t be higher — both onscreen and offscreen — but after watching the movie, I don’t understand why I was meant to care. As an intellectual exercise, Tenet is very interesting, if not entirely successful. As a movie, I’m not so sure."
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"Complexity for complexity’s sake is seemingly at the heart of Tenet. It is mostly entertaining but undeniably baffling: Many will return to its intricacies in order to make sense of it."
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"Nolan’s desire to stimulate both the blood and the brain feels earnest. What’s frustrating is that he doesn’t trust his audience to follow along."
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"Christopher Nolan’s frosty espionage sci-fi delivers visual intensity but little heart."
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"You have to hand it to Nolan. To use the old expression, he puts the money on the screen, delivering the kind of noisy, extravagant and fundamentally ridiculous pulp fiction which reminds you why you go to the cinema. But it collapses under the weight of all the plot strands and concepts stuffed into it. You don’t get the impression, which you usually get from his films, that every element is precisely where it should be. Some parts of it go on too long, others not long enough. It’s a treat to see a really big film again, but a smaller one might have been better."
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"All this delicious incident has the makings of a gung-ho entertainment – Ian Fleming as mounted by Nasa. Unfortunately that’s not what we get. Even if we were brave enough to try, we would not be capable of spoiling a plot so wilfully obtuse it demands repeat viewings to disentangle."
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"It is somewhat disappointing to leave a movie without a full grasp of what you’ve just watched. Still, there’s something rather wonderful in seeing a filmmaker take a proper swing with an original concept in a tentpole world increasingly populated by sequels, remakes, and reboots. And while Tenet might not make it easy to connect the dots, it’s still a thrilling ride to herald the return of cinema-going."
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"This is a bad film by a good filmmaker. It has the veneer of substantiality, but it’s unsubstantial. It is the product of sincere conviction and artistic confidence, but both were misguided. Every filmmaker needs to take the occasional chance, as Christopher Nolan did with “Tenet.” Not all chances pay off."
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"One of Nolan’s greatest attributes as a filmmaker is his trust in the intellect of mainstream audiences—audiences who have rewarded that trust by making challenging, original works like Inception huge hits. This time, though, it might have been smart to dumb things down a bit."
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"Mostly, Tenet is a straightforward caper movie—maximally staged and very, very loud, but flimsy at its heart. "
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"Trying to understand the story can make you feel like you’re sitting on a stool in a dunce cap."
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"Every time that Tenet stops to speak, it only emphasizes a hollowness within: how enamored it is of its own cleverness."
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"I wish Tenet exploited its own ideas more dynamically. Nolan’s a prodigious talent. But no major director, I suppose, can avoid going sideways from time to time."
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"What kind of picture is it? Big, certainly: IMAX-scaled, and a hefty 150 minutes even after a visibly ruthless edit. It’s clever, too — yes, the palindromic title has some narrative correlation — albeit in an exhausting, rather joyless way. As second comings go, Tenet is like witnessing a Sermon on the Mount preached by a savior who speaks exclusively in dour, drawn-out riddles. Any awe is flattened by follow-up questions."
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"The master of cerebral action cinema is back, and whatever lessons were learnt about the triumph of the human spirit during the making of Dunkirk, they were swiftly forgotten for this new piece of filmic flimflammery."
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"There’s something grating about a film which insists on detailing its pseudo-science while also conceding you probably won’t have followed a thing. We’re clobbered with plot then comforted with tea-towel homilies about how what’s happened has happened."
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