Tenet (2020)

Directed by Christopher Nolan. Starring John David Washington, Robert Pattinson, Elizabeth Debicki, Kenneth Branagh, Himesh Patel, Dimple Kapadia, Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Clémence Poésy, Yuri Kolokolnikov, Fiona Dourif, Martin Donovan. [PG-13]

A paradoxical palindromic puzzle in the attire of a mega-millions sci-fi action epic, coldly alluring but withdrawn. Washington is the “Protagonist,” a CIA agent recruited by the enigmatic intelligence organization, Tenet, to save the world; this involves lots of mumbo jumbo related to temporal attacks (objects with “inverted entropy” that move backward through time, originating from some ill-defined future war) and defying a menacing autocrat with murky motivations (played by Branagh as a Russian villain that’s perhaps even more generic than the one he played in Jack Ryan: Shadow Recruit). Writer/director Nolan’s byzantine screenplay is designed to breed confusion, to challenge the viewer to stretch the grey matter in order to untangle it all, but there’s no human interest gadget to cling to, something to compel interest and care enough to put forth the effort, and it certainly doesn’t help that 90% of the dialogue is composed of rhetorical half-riddles and exposition. Though gimmicky and self-indulgent to a fault, Nolan’s grand cinematic vision can at least boast an exceptionally well-crafted production, despite the unreasonably busy camerawork and scenic fragmentation (notice how often conversations fluidly transpire across multiple locations…if any of these elliptical discussions could be described as “fluid,” that is); high-tech toys and dynamic ways to stage action sequences can’t redeem so much muddled tomfoolery, but at least they provide the occasional reason to perk up and concentrate. Regardless of complaints that it sometimes renders dialogue unintelligible, the industrial distortion of Ludwig Göransson’s jittery, propulsive score is also worthy of praise. Nolan-regular Michael Caine cameos.

44/100 or 001/44