Visiting an old friend.
After a long exile, I finally found myself back at the movie theater today. I have to tell you it was a welcome distraction from all this nonsense. It was nice to make plans, have a set agenda, and disappear from reality if only for a few hours.
And while there aren't a lot of choices, this week Warner Brothers finally released Tenet, Christopher Nolan's next extravaganza. The man behind the great Dark Knight trilogy, Memento, Inception, and Interstellar - to name a few, is once again doing all he can to tell a fascinating and worthwhile story.
Like many of his movies, you need to pay attention to every detail because if you blink you might miss a key piece of information. Tenet has a simple premise but an extraordinary way of telling it.
"Armed with only one word, Tenet, and fighting for the survival of the entire world, a Protagonist journeys through a twilight world of international espionage on a mission that will unfold in something beyond real time."
Like all of his movies, the cast is superb and full of familiar faces. John David Washington, Blackkklansman, and Robert Patterson, The Batman & The Lighthouse among others, have a smooth chemistry that helps propel the movie in the proper direction even when the movie is moving in multiple directions at once. Michael Caine, Himesh Patel, Elizabeth Debicki, and Aaron Taylor-Johnson all play important roles in the Protagonist's attempt to piece everything together in time to save the world.
Kenneth Branagh slips back into the Russian villain role that seems to fit him as well as his Shakespearean roles did in the 90s. I don't know why it is, but Branagh seems to only want to play roles with pronounced accents. The preview for his next Agatha Christie mystery Death on the Nile came on before the film and he continues to play up the thick accent of Hercule Poirot.
While I found the film engaging and entertaining, the true experience was seeing it in the theater. A place where a movie like this is supposed to be seen. Loud explosions and huge screens drowning your senses with overloaded stimulation while trying to sneak this or that past you towards a big reveal. Nolan is the master of the big screen, and while I am excited to see this again on my television to pick out any little things that may have snuck by, this movie should be seen at a theater. Of course, to go with that is the real reason I love the movie theater so much...popcorn.
There's just something magical about the whole experience. A way to take that nostalgic trip back to your childhood, before your home entertainment center was as impressive or in some cases better than the theaters of yesteryear. Coke from the fountain, candy in the box, and freshly popped popcorn all seem better at the theater as you gorge yourself while taking in a summer blockbuster, the latest horror movie, or Disney's next big animated spectacular.
The previews were a bit sparse since the theaters are still opening at a slower pace, but they showed Wonder Woman 84, Greenland - a Gerard Butler end of the world movie, Dune, and the aforementioned Death on the Nile. All movies that need a big screen in my opinion to shine.
If you have the opportunity and have a theater taking care of their patrons in the way many restaurants and superstores are with new guidelines in cleanliness and spacing...go check out Tenet or any of the classics many of the theaters are showing as they wait for the new hits to be released. Your old friend misses you and is ready to make more movie memories.
My first novel, The Shadow Within, received its 18th review on Amazon and has an overall rating of 4.8 out of 5 stars. You can get it on Kindle and paperback at Amazon.
