Simultaneously everything great about Nolan and everything terrible about him, most of which are complementary:
I hope you don’t like dialogue. Not only will you not be able to hear it in this mix (without upsetting your neighbours because everything else is so loud), but when you can hear it, it’s not good.
It’s extremely original, and conceptually interesting, but Nolan still fails to grasp basic storytelling procedure. I was so confused about why we were in India that I kept re-playing previous scenes in my head, trying to remember somebody mentioning India (as years of film watching have trained me to do). Nope. Nolan explains why we’re there only after the majority of this sequence plays out, leaving us in the dark and confused. Not a good look when your plot is basically Back to the Future without heart and with added “guns go bang.”
On the topic of heart, this film completely lacks an emotional centrepiece. Yes, the wife and her son, but I spent most of the film thinking that was a side plot. And I think I was meant to, because we’re repeatedly reminded who the unnamed Protagonist is.
The music is definitely Hans Zimmer, as written by a sound-alike.
At the same time, Tenet is completely engrossing. It’s visually interesting, bold, ambitious, and it rewards your attention. It’s so intellectually satisfying that one almost doesn’t mind how bland the story actually is. (As an aside: if Interstellar is an example of Nolan’s “emotional” filmmaking, I would prefer this, but mostly I would prefer it if he came up with an emotionally resonant story before he applied mind-bending physics to it. Inception was great at this, and remains his masterpiece.)
I think Nolan has found the limit for how far he can push an action film’s intellect while ignoring any real meaning.