I think calling Nolan a hack is a little ridiculous. The man still creates really interesting movies that on a technical level are amazing and filled with an actual director's touch. In a world where it continuously feels like media is safe and the same, he still creates very unique and challenging movies. I know internet tough guys will balk at that and try to undermine that, but I've always though it's intellectually lazy and regressive to go "oh but see it's really just a copy if you simplify the work to just a brief description". Whatever I don't care.
But just because I'm not hot on Tenet dosen't mean I think Nolan is done. Every creator is going to have a dud or a work where they go too far. A work that kind of sums up a lot of thier excess. I think Tenet is just that. I did'nt care for it. Mostly because yeah the character's lacked humanity to me. Maybe that was the point? I also thought the plot was too much. Maybe I'm an idiot.
My bias in fiction is that I care about themes and clear storytelling with those themes. I've never been someone who cares about plotholes or if the characters are super deep. As long as characters have motivation, a role in the storytelling, and some sort of presence I'm good.
With Tenet I just don't quite understand what Nolan wanted to do. The man has a clear fascination with time. How we perceive it and relate to it. Interstellar has time effect a father and daughter relationship and plays into the story completely. It deals a lot with how humanity as conscious relates to time. Inception has time perceived on a dreamlike level. The Prestige tells the story out of order so that you can get a feeling for the two leads. Dunkirk is probably his best use of time as he plays with time and perspective almost to a point that it dosent matter. As you watch Dunkirk you lose track of time only realizing that all the events have lead to a specific moment. Nolan loves those moments in his movies, where the audience catches up to what he's been saying. He loves twists where you go "oh it all makes sense now". He loves clever moments that sometimes subvert your expectaions but feel real to you. Sometimes they work. Sometimes they are stupid. He really wanted that Talia reveal in Dark Knight Rises for whatever reason. Tenet feels like it has those moments, but that are really telegraphed to me. Mostly because a lot of them I felt "well yeah this is what has to happen in a time travel story". But none of them feel "human" to me because the characters are whatever.
spoiler (click to show/hide)
Robert Pattison being the protag's friend all a long. Yeah that gives you the Prestige like feeling where you go back and watch the scene where knows how the Protag takes his drink. Ok? But at the end of the day despite thier chemistry I'm not sure why i should care. It dosen't feel like a real friendship. These don't feel like characters that had real motivation to be friends.
Yeah it's great that Kate was the actual diver, but again you see it a mile away because of course she is. It's time travel though the movie works its ass off to not be time travel. I also feel nothing, because the character is so one note
But I also feel nothing because I'll be honest, I never understood what was really going on. Though even if I did, would I really care? See in Inception I somewhat care about whats going on, because Cob has such a real reason to do what he is doing. He wants to see his kids. He needs a builder because he can't do it anymore because of the lingering trauma of his wife. He needs to let go of the past, the time with his wife. He needs to live for the future. You can complain that the supporting cast is whatever, but I always felt that they all have presence. They also all have innate roles in the story, because the movies is a heist movie.
Tenet is a spy movie, but unlike Inception I don't think its as well executed. Both use a far out there premise, but ground it in the structure of another genre. I guess I just don't think the "gimmick" was as well explained in Tenet. In Inception it feels pretty well thought out and the explanation for why it exists is also very simple(military designed it for training whatever). Here it's tied to some future algorithm that's from the future, but we have machines to reverse it, and some Russian guy found it, but if he dies it's all over. The explanation for the inverse stuff reminded me of Interstellar where the black hole with the device to send messages through time is made also by future people. It was ok in Interstellar because one of the themes is communication through time, but also because space whatever.
Here honestly, I would have been fine with a simple Russian dude discovered new weapon because of nuclear disaster in Russia and is dangerous. It would be very James Bond. I don't understand why the villain dying will end the world. but all the stakes in the movie are tied to it. Since I don't understand it, I lost.
I almost feel like Nolan wanted to create a story where the begining and end meet and thats the big moment. The time travel is I guess basically one flows up river the other flows down river and I guess you are able to turn around at certain junctions. Ok, but I don't really know how this really plays out for the benefit of the storytelling and character work. So I'm just left with a movie that I don't really care about.
