Tenet (2020) - Intellectually challenging but emotionally underwhelming - 7/10 (31/08/20)

It's simply great to return to the cinema and watch a new movie for the first time in half a year due to the coronavirus pandemic. In addition to this, it's not just any movie but the new film by British cult director Christopher Nolan who has just celebrated his fiftieth birthday. As you might expect from his films, Tenet is visually stunning, profoundly philosophical and challengingly intellectual.

On the positive side, the visual aspects of this science-fiction film are quite impressive. Especially the battle and car chase scenes are memorable and should be experienced at your local cinema and not on a streaming platform. The story comes around with a few surprises and multiple details that might take some time to sink in. Still, the plot never gets too complex or confusing. You need to stay fully focused for two and a half hours but you will get rewarded with a unique movie that walks off the beaten path. While the overall acting performances are overall average, Kenneth Branagh is absolutely stunning as unpredictable antagonist worthy of a classic movie of the James Bond franchise.

Tenet is however not without a few flaws. While the story is quite intellectual, the emotional component is overall rather underwhelming. The protagonist is sympathetic but nothing more and the side characters are often lacking depth to a point when you stop caring about their fates. Instead of adding complex twists and turns to the story, the director should have developed the film's characters as only the antagonist can fully convince. The acting performances are overall unremarkable with the positive exception of Kenneth Branagh. John David Washington is at times lacking charisma and doesn't quite seem to fit the shoe of a blockbuster protagonist and Robert Pattinson doesn't exploit his full potential either and seems almost disconnected from his role as he seems to portray a careless youngster rather than a clever strategist.

In the end, Tenet is an intellectually challenging science-fiction drama with stunning sound and visual effects. However, it isn't the masterpiece some people seem to suggest. If you haven't been watching any science-fiction movies recently, then you might be quite impressed but let me tell you that films like Freaks, Upgrade and The Witch are at least as great as and sometimes even better than Tenet.