Even the best filmmakers make colossal blunders, and this comes from Christopher Nolan (Inception, Memento, The Dark Knight trilogy). A $200+ million mistake on top of a miscalculation, Nolan insisted that his sprawling, unfathomable sci-fi action-adventure be released mid-pandemic in theaters. After he’s captured on a mission gone awry, the CIA Protagonist (John David Washington, Denzel’s son) must battle espionage to save the world, armed with only one word: ‘Tenet.’ His enemy is a Russian arms merchant (Kenneth Branagh), who has a super-weapon called ‘inversion,’ meaning the ability to manipulate things backward through time. It’s inverted motion - like bullets loading back into guns after being firing and cars chasing each other in reverse gear. Along for the ride are the Protagonist’s sidekick (Robert Pattinson) and the Russian oligarch’s elegant, aloof, estranged wife (Elizabeth Debicki), who goes through a temporal turnstile.
Attempting to explain some of the Protagonist’s bewilderment is a scientist (Clemence Poesy), instructing: “Don’t try to understand it. Feel it.” Going back to Tom Hardy’s muffled discourse in The Dark Knight Rises, British-American writer/director Nolan seems determined to garble dialogue beyond comprehension. Perhaps subtitles would help but I’m not sure. Instead, Nolan concentrates on grandiose, special-effects action, employing dozens of stuntpeople in exotic locations. The opening sequence involves a terrorist attack on a classical concert, another is aboard a Boeing 747, then a catamaran, and there’s a multi-car chase. Remember: ‘Tenet’ is a palindrome, spelled the same backward and forward, meaning you’ll see some of the same scenes twice in reverse chronology. Wrecked buildings self-repair and explosions funnel down. It’s visually dazzling but absolutely impenetrable. Optional.