First Unofficial Reactions for Christopher Nolan's ‘Tenet' Are Positive

Christopher Nolan’s “Tenet” is only coming out in Europe/Canada in 11 days, but that hasn’t stopped Warner Bros. from screening the film for press in certain countries. One of those countries is Canada, where a highly secretive press screening took place in Toronto this past week. I was sent two reactions by journalists who were lucky enough to have attended a screening of the film, one in Toronto and the other in Europe, both of which had their theaters almost completely desolate, with the Toronto journalist saying his theater was 95% empty.

Given the secrecy of the plot, no spoilers will be posted here. In fact, I am refraining from reading anything about “Tenet” until I get to see it at a scheduled press screening. Regardless, here are the first two reactions I received:

This was clearly made for Nolan fans, through and through, they will love every single minute of it and it’s also his best movie since “Inception.” It’s akin to Scorsese going back to mob movies or John Ford making another Western. A sort of back-to-the-basics approach for Nolan after making “Dunkirk.” There are so many twists and turns in “Tenet,” it has a puzzle-like nature to its story and the weight of the action scenes is enormous. The 150 minutes just flew. Quite honestly, I still don’t fully grasp a few things within the story, a second viewing will help clear a few things up but it’s very much a time-travel movie done in the most deliberately complicated of ways. If Inception was about dreaming, then “Tenet” is about reversing time and righting the wrongs of the past. The locations are also stunning, this was shot on-location in many countries. This will probably make a boatload of money because it gives Nolan fans exactly what they want and the final scene does bring the need for multiple viewings.

The next person —

“Contrary to mainstream moviegoers, I am not an unabashed fan of Nolan’s movies. For example, I find his best work was actually “Dunkirk,” in that movie he tried to abstain from giving us his usual puzzle and just made this masterfully technical and minimalist vision of WWII. Other films of his I like are “Memento,” “Insomnia,” “The Prestige” and “The Dark Knight (up until the final 20 minutes). No, I don’t particularly love “Interstellar” and “Inception,” they felt like forced visions to me, as if he was trying to show off, purposely confusing us in the process, rather than just telling his story in coherent fashion. I also never thought he was that great at shooting action, he doesn't like lingering on a shot for too long, always cutting from shot-to-shot. Regardless, “Tenet” is not “Dunkirk,” but we already knew that would be the case, it is, however, far better than “Inception” and “Interstellar” because a) there isn’t as much exposition b) the actors actually act, especially a stellar John David Washington, I also loved Elizabeth Debicki’s role, Robert Pattinson is the cool and calm demeaned fella ala DiCaprio in Inception c) the reverse-engineering plot device is actually not that complicated, you can actually follow this movie and not get too lost. Yes, much like some of his other movies, “Tenet” plays a lot with time and fate, but it does so in refreshingly concise ways. The action scenes are also flat-out great, It feel like Nolan has learned a lot from his experience in “Dunkirk,” he’s now much more confident in the way he stages his action, there’s barely any overreaching, it all feels very effortless.

Warner Bros. is set to open Nolan’s long-awaited epic in over 70 countries worldwide, including Europe and Canada, starting on Wednesday, August 26. Meanwhile, “Tenet” will be released in the U.S. on September 3rd in cities that “have reopened safely.” There is still no word yet on whether the two biggest American markets (New York City and Los Angeles) will allow “Tenet” to screen in their theaters, mostly due to the restrictive COVID-19 laws that have been put into place in their respective states.