Tenet

If I thought Christopher Nolan's films Inception and Interstellar were confusing, they are Mother Goose compared to his latest, Tenet. I had little idea what this film was about. It was like watching a foreign film without subtitles.

That being said, the film can still be enjoyed for its action sequences and some excellent performances, particularly by Kenneth Branagh as an extremely sinister villain.

I can't hope to give a plot summary, but I do know that it's centered around some kind of technology that comes from the future and causes entropy to move backwards, so things look to be acting in reverse, like bullets moving into a gun, or cars going in reverse. Also, at stake is the existence of the world.

John David Washington stars as a CIA agent known only as The Protagonist. He is tasked with figuring everything out, and stopping Branagh, a Russian oligarch who has somehow accessed this technology. Also in the mix are Elizabeth Debicki as Branagh's wife, and Robert Pattinson as an agent helping Washington.

But I was completely baffled by Tenet. There are some spectacular action scenes--the stunt work is amazing--including a car chase in which one car is going in reverse. Toward the end of the film there is a shootout with soldiers who are both moving forward and backwards, but don't ask me who they are fighting or why, Not helping things is much indecipherable dialogue. I chalked this up to my hearing problems, but apparently the sound mix is a common complaint. It should have been given subtitles. Maybe I'll watching it again on DVD when I can turn them on.

But the good news in all of this is that I saw it in a theater. At least here in Las Vegas the theaters are open, although showing only a few new movies. There were also numerous trailers, including tentpole films such as the new Bond and Wonder Woman, that have fall release dates and pointedly indicate that they will be released in theaters. Maybe by then the cinema business will be back in something approaching full swing.