Tenet

About 15 minutes into Tenet, our lead character, known only as The Protagonist asks a scientist a question about something weird he's just seen happen. Her reply sums up the entire experience of Tenet. "Don't even try to understand it."

Fair enough. I think I got there eventually. But it left a few sub cranial bruises.

During an opera in Kiev a terrorist attack takes place and Ukranian armed forces storm the opera house not knowing there's an undercover CIA agent (John David Washington) along for the ride. His mission, is to steal an unidentified object from one of the VIP viewing areas. His exit route goes sideways and the object is taken but not before he witnesses a bizarre bit of impossible physics. He's later recruited into a secret organisation and told one word - 'Tenet'. His mission is to take down a Russian Oligarch called Andrei Sator (Kenneth Branagh) who's found a way to manipulate time. To help him he recruits a British agent called Neil (Robert Pattinson) who seems to know everything about everything and their way into Sator's organisation is through his wife Kat (Elizabeth Debicki), a woman with a lot to lose.

90 minutes into this I started to understand what was going on. Ok, started to understand is an overstatement but things started getting clearer. Things from earlier that had caused confusion suddenly made sense and with that the film became fun. Big fun. Big loud fun. Christopher Nolan loves his noisy action packed setpieces and here he throws them about with aplomb but it's only later in the film that you'll begin to enjoy them because my god Tenet is confusing. It's not exactly a time travel film but it's as brain melting as one. Terms like grandfather paradox and reverse entropy are thrown around and all you can do is grin and nod your head like you know what's going on. Until that moment mentioned earlier when things start to link together in your mind. Then it gets cool.

That 747 bit, those corridor fights, a bruising kitchen encounter, a horribly tense car chase, all out colour co-ordinated war. Full on moments that will sate the action junkie in all of us. If this is Nolan's audition for a Bond directing gig then he's passed with flying colours. His more intimate fight scenes still suffer from confusing geography and too much close up action but the wider stuff feels epic in scale. There's action here you'll have never seen on a cinema screen before and it will have you grinning like a loon. Until the moment you get confused again. And again. It's a film that will benefit from a second watch. One where you can take notes to turn into charts later and drive yourself batty.

That cast though. Second to none. Carrying the film through all it's madness. Even if you find it all a bit infuriating they'll keep you watching. Washington is cool as fuck, just like his daddy. All swagger and confidence, and absolutely believable when he's jamming a cheese grater into a scumbag's adam's apple. He's the audience proxy and it nearly feels like a relief at the moments when he's as confused as us. Pattinson's Neil is a fun addition who grows in stature as the film moves forward. His is the part that will stand up well to another viewing. Neil and The Protagonist work well together and their final moment is a great one, heavy with implication. Debicki's Kat gives the film it's bit of soul, stopping it feeling too clinical and like Pattinson's Neil, her Kat plays a far more substantial part than you'd think when she first appears. Branagh's bad guy is pure Bond villain. Cut crystal glasses filled with spirits, a genuinely horrible plan, all he's missing is a white cat in his lap to stroke. He's fun to watch. Except for that bit. That bit's not nice at all. Together though everyone gels and we even get a chip filled cameo from Nolan's muse too.

If you've avoided the cinema so far Tenet's a grand way to get back into the swing of things. You might leave with a headache but you can't deny it's a thrilling bit of cinema once you get your head around it.

If you get your head around it....

Tenet is in cinemas now.