Leighton Trent’s review published on Letterboxd:
Ain't no party like a Christopher Nolan mindfuck party
For the first time in his career, Christopher Nolan has made a film that is bulletproof to overanalyzation. Plot or not, it's a hell of a vibe and I'm mostly here for it. As with pretty much all of his pictures, I think it'll be more rewarding on a rewatch or six, but personally I think this would have played much better for me on the big screen (covid kinda shot that horse in the face), frustrating sound design or not. This kind of event film just never plays as well in your home no matter how damn loud (or not) you're allowed to play it without waking up your kids.
What I did get from these two and half hours on this first watch is as follows:
- John David Washington is the kind of badass action lead here that his dad always wished he could be
- Robert Pattinson's low key comic relief is the kind of stuff James Bond films are made of
- The wonderful presence of the undervalued and underseen Elizabeth Debicki is very much welcomed in this man's world
- Kenneth Brannagh's cutthroat, scenery swallowing, late career bad Brando villain wouldn't work without everything here being magnified x200
- That sound design was frustrating, but not nearly as bad as I imagined
- The practical effects are better than the CG ones here
- Christopher Nolan still knows what the hell he's doing with a camera and a vision, but maybe not so much with a script. All is forgiven though ... this time
