Tenet: Do not try to understand, feel it

After delaying it numerous times, Christopher Nolan's latest mind game "Tenet" is finally out with a bang and Warner Bros has decreed you would not be able to stream it at home.

Fortunately our movie theatres are all open and Tenet is screening at Star Cineplex from Friday.

This film is a spectacular, baffling mixture of James Bond-style action and speculative science fiction.

Watch the trailer of "Tenet" here 

It seems to echo some of Nolan's previous greatest hits. There are war action scenes that recall "Dunkirk," an espionage narrative that feels like "Inception," and even a whole lot of people talking through masks remind of Bane from "The Dark Knight Rises." 

Tenet has once again proven there is nothing like a Christopher Nolan film. When it comes to smart and spectacular blockbusters with a sci-fi twist, nobody does it better than him.

Still, some critics wondered if it is really worth it for audiences to abandon their couches and head out to theatres to watch it on the big screen.

Ironically, Tenet begins in a crowded theatre, an odd sight in these strange times.

The characters also spend a lot of time in face-obscuring respirators, which feels fitting as many viewers will also be wearing masks.

Christopher Nolan's latest feature centres around a man called "The Protagonist", a secret agent played by John David Washington, who is tasked with hunting down a Russian oligarch (Kenneth Branagh) and preventing World War III by traveling through time.

One thing to keep in mind while seeing the movie, it is not just another "time travel" movie, it is on inversion. And what is inversion?

Tenet's central idea is that it is possible for objects to move backwards through time, as well as forwards. This process, known as inversion, is not like traditional time travel – it is a radiation-fuelled process that changes the object on a cellular level, reversing its entropy (energy that cannot be used for work), and it is enormously dangerous in the wrong hands.

That is the premise of the movie and the characters explain this through 150-minute runtime.

It is less difficult to understand the concept from the above definition than all the explaining in the movie.

The film's screenplay keeps underlining and explaining its layered plot about technology that can reverse time.

Thankfully, it does so with stunning cinematography by Hoyte Van Hoytema and action-packed scenes which are executed with a natural flair and finesse.

Tenet is pretty complicated. Even before things get all timey-wimey, you need to make an effort to keep track of what is going on.

Do not worry if you do not remember all the details, Nolan's ability to bring seemingly impossible concepts to life onscreen gives Tenet its biggest thrills.

What makes Tenet so watchable is the sense that Nolan knows exactly what he is doing.

Like it or not, the thinness of the characters and the complexity of the concepts is all by design; both are wryly acknowledged in the script more than once, but you barely have time to get too hung up on either before the next breath-taking action sequence arrives to demand your attention.

Everyone is quite aptly cast including Dimple Kapadia, who lends a certain gravitas to her enigmatic character of a powerful Indian woman.

Robert Pattinson is charming but remains strictly in a supporting role, never overshadowing the Protagonist, played quite effectively by John David Washington.

John's brooding persona and no-nonsense dialogue delivery is impactful. Elizabeth Debicki is honest in her part as an abused wife held to ransom by her chauvinist husband, but could have been more convincingly written.

Kenneth Branagh's character of Andrei is quite the caricature of a Russian Mafioso with a typical accent and snarling dialogue delivery.

Tenet demands full attention from its viewer, yet there is no guarantee you will comprehend the film's nuanced narrative in its totality.

But that does not take away from enjoying the cinematic experience of Nolan's vivid imagination that is skilfully portrayed on the big screen.

The secret to enjoying Tenet lies in what a scientist, who is explaining inversion, tells the Protagonist in the movie, "Do not try to understand, feel it."