ash’s review published on Letterboxd:
The entire opening region of Tenet is just some of the best filmmaking I’ve seen in awhile, from the opening opera house sequence to the final lines of the expositional conversation between JDW and Poesy, not only in just how smoothly it flows, but also in how it sets up the entire story and the film’s tone so well, whilst balancing action with exposition, but also sentimentality with the film’s cold, distant nature, remaining both cerebral early on and massively visceral.
Heck, I’d even include the Mumbai scenes till the end of JDW and Neil’s escape from Priya’s penthouse. The opening opera sequence is just simply one of Nolan's best scenes - the best scene in Tenet, and among his top 5, but even further than that it might just be his best opening scene - a big statement considering it holds that position with Inception, The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight Rises. It’s insane how Nolan opens this film on a huge, theatrical note - spectacle maxed to blockbuster levels of action, maintained with the early-on puzzle of inversion; a concept unknown at this point but still made aware to the audience, telling them of the forthcoming labyrinthian concept Nolan implements into the creaks of Tenet’s plot.
2020 in film doesn’t get better than Tenet.
