Tenet reviews and trailers: what the critics think of Christopher Nolan’s new blockbuster

Tenet film directed by Christopher Nolan

(Image credit: Warner Bros. Pictures)

published 24 August 2020

When Tenet is released in UK cinemas on Wednesday, writer and director Christopher Nolan won’t be the only one wishing for box office success.

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Alex Godfrey, Empire: “Just as with Indiana Jones, for which George Lucas persuaded Bond fan Steven Spielberg they could create their own hero instead of piggybacking on someone else’s, Nolan has made his own Bond film here, borrowing everything he likes about it, binning everything he doesn’t, then Nolaning it all up (ie: mucking about with the fabric of time). And while Washington - never not magnetic, every second of this film - isn’t a suave playboy in the slightest, he has the swagger - and the odd wisecrack.”

Catherine Shoard, The Guardian: “Tenet is not a movie it’s worth the nervous braving a trip to the big screen to see, no matter how safe it is. I’m not even sure that, in five years’ time, it’d be worth staying up to catch on telly. To say so is sad, perhaps heretical. But for audiences to abandon their living rooms in the long term, the first carrot had better not leave a bad taste. If the long-awaited sci-fi from the Inception director restarts the summer of cinema it will go down as his finest hour. But Tenet is far from his finest work.”

Donald Clarke, Irish Times: “As ever, Nolan foreswears digital trickery for meaty effects using physical objects with mass and velocity. When a 747 crashes into an airport terminal you can count on it being an actual jet (not even a model). All this delicious incident has the makings of a gung-ho entertainment - Ian Fleming as mounted by Nasa. Unfortunately that’s not what we get. Even if we were brave enough to try, we would not be capable of spoiling a plot so wilfully obtuse it demands repeat viewings to disentangle.”

Ian Sandwell, DigitalSpy: “Tenet is the big-budget canary in the coalmine and there’s no doubt its release is a gamble. But before that discussion about cinema’s future can even begin (or the debate about whether people should even be going to the cinema right now), there’s another question that needs to be answered: is Tenet actually good? The short answer is yes, even if it’s not Nolan's all-time best movie. Nolan has crafted a hell of a ride. Without getting into specifics, the action sequences are remarkable, with each one taking a classic spy situation - a heist, for instance - and putting a fresh spin on it. This is absolutely Nolan delivering his James Bond movie, only Bond never had to deal with inverted bullets.”

Jamie East, The Sun: “It’s a spectacle that deserves to be seen in the best place possible (if you have an Imax near you, book it). But it’s on a basic creative level that the film starts to fall apart. Admittedly, this could be Nolan’s masterstroke - make Tenet so damned confusing and difficult to follow, you have no choice but to watch it more than once - but I doubt even he would take that risk.”

Matt Purslow, IGN: “It’s when Tenet brings the camera close to its subjects, though, that its ideas really manifest into something special. One sequence involves leading man John David Wahsington fighting hand-to-hand, but his assailant is moving in reverse. This creates an oddly unsettling effect; the enemy combatant writhes and jerks in unnatural ways, making for something that’s almost a militarised Twin Peaks scene. It’s in sequences like this that Tenet’s time concept is most impressive, rather than its reversed car crashes or time-synced explosions.”

Jessica Kiang, The New York Times: “For once, spoiler sensitivity might be the reviewer’s luckiest break, absolving me of even attempting an explanation of a plot so contorted it’s best not to worry about it. Even the scientist played by Clémence Poésy, here exclusively to deliver exposition, eventually cops out. ‘Don’t try to understand it, feel it’ is the best advice anyone offers.”

Leslie Felperin, The Hollywood Reporter: “If it seems like this review is shying away from describing the plot, that’s not just out of concern to avoid spoilers. I watched the movie twice for this review, and still feel very confused about what is supposed to be going on and why. Altogether, it makes for a chilly, cerebral film - easy to admire, especially since it’s so rich in audacity and originality, but almost impossible to love, lacking as it is in a certain humanity.”

Mike Starling is the former digital features editor at The Week. He started his career in 2001 in Gloucestershire as a sports reporter and sub-editor and has held various roles as a writer and editor at news, travel and B2B publications. He has spoken at a number of sports business conferences and also worked as a consultant creating sports travel content for tourism boards. International experience includes spells living and working in Dubai, UAE; Brisbane, Australia; and Beirut, Lebanon.