As distinctively Nolan-esque as all of his films - in style, theme and treatment - and with some of the strengths of his best, Tenet nonetheless didn't completely do it for me.
Hard not to compare it to those others, and by that yardstick, Tenet doesn't have quite the interlocked high-concept and character-based (emotional) dimensions of The Prestige, Inception and Interstellar, the combination of sheer excitement and moral texture in his Batman films, the satisfying neatness of Memento as well as a couple of those others, or the same sustained sense of stature and charisma about all of its characters. The one I haven't mentioned there is Dunkirk (my memories of Insomnia are vague), which I still look back on as an impressive but maybe my least favourite of his; interestingly, it - like Tenet - is also an overt take on genre, in that case war as opposed to spy.
Having said that, it was still a very good watch, with plenty of intrigue, a lot of action, some characteristically great set pieces, an intricate - and difficult to follow - construction, and plenty of uncertainty about where it was going and how it would get there, with all of its central performances highly watchable (especially charming is Robert Pattinson - it's a bit remarkable that the two principals of Twilight have turned out to be two of the most interesting, and maybe best, of their generation of actors).
(w/ R)
