theriverjordan’s review published on Letterboxd:
After a career spent remaking Michael Mann’s “Heat,” Christopher Nolan has finally made his “Miami Vice” (2006).
“Tenet” - like its Mann-made, cocaine-fuelled cousin - is so overly burdened with the affectons of its own director, it descends into near chaos as a result.
Of course, this is Nolan, the director who never shows up in set photos looking anything less than meticulously dressed. So naturally, it’s a very planned-out type of chaos... I assume.
Like Michael Mann to boats and blue light in “Miami Vice,” there’s just too much of Nolan’s favorite things in “Tenet.” There are so many reverse movement effects, that it begins to feel more special when people just... exist normally.
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In Nolan fashion, let me time jump here... After “Inception” came out, I spent the next five years lingering on the Tumblr (I am an old, yes) tag for the movie, reading fanfic that let it live well past its hype date. The most ingenious fan art and creations were ‘prequel stories’ that recounted the previous jobs of its characters (particularly the criminally under-featured Eames).
Nonetheless, “Inception” - like its protagonists - also stood on its own as half enigma and half thriller.
“Tenet” ends, practically begging for a better writer - professional or otherwise - to contextualise its own two leads (whom are given a quite deliberate ‘Casablanca’ allusion of a sendoff that makes their queer subtext... basically just text). Checking in on “Tenet’s” Tumblr and Twitter tags... I can see the fans are already more than up to the monumental task.
I can only hope that what they make from the fascinating jumble of a new Nolan universe will be more cohesive than its source material.
