原文译文
*注：本文摘自8月21日BBC News
Tenet review: ‘It feels like several blockbusters combined’
《信条》影评：几部大片集合体
Christopher Nolan’s latest is Hollywood’s first release in six months, but “it collapses under the weight of all the plot strands and concepts stuffed into it,” writes Nicholas Barber.
克里斯托弗·诺兰的新作是好莱坞6个月来的第一部电影，但尼古拉斯·巴伯写道认为“这部电影在各种情节和概念的胡塞乱填下崩溃了。”
1. Christopher Nolan’s Tenet is the first new Hollywood blockbuster to be released in cinemas in almost six months. The good news is that it is so sprawling, so epic, so crammed with exotic locations, snazzy costumes, shoot-outs and explosions that you get six months’ worth of big-screen entertainment in two and a half hours. Clearly, it never occurred to Nolan to tone it down every now and then. Having directed Inception, Interstellar, and the Dark Knight trilogy, he’s not someone you associate with quiet, intimate indie dramas. But it’s still startling to see a film so over-the-top that when one character asks if the villains are planning a nuclear holocaust, another character snaps: “No. Something worse.”
诺兰的《信条》是近六个月来电影院上映的第一部好莱坞大片。令人高兴的是这部电影规模宏大，电影中满是各种具有异国情调的外景，时髦的服装，还有各种枪战和爆炸场面，你可以在两个半小时内获得这六个月的电影娱乐。显然，诺兰从没想过要低调一点。诺兰曾执导过《盗梦空间》、《星际穿越》和《黑暗骑士》三部曲，他不是那种会让你把他和那种安静，私密的独立电影联想到一起的导演。但是，影片中如此过火的场景还是会令观众惊奇。在一个场景中，当一个角色问起反派是否在策划一场核毁灭时，另一个回答：不，比这更糟。
2. The recipient of this unpleasant news is a cool and confident CIA agent (John David Washington, star of BlacKkKlansman) known only as the Protagonist. He is then told that certain objects scattered around the world are moving backwards through time: they were manufactured in the future and are heading into the past. In some way that I didn’t understand, an exposition-spouting scientist (Clémence Poésy) has worked out that these “inverted” objects are the remnants of a war which will be declared centuries from now, and will nonetheless wipe out the whole of history. Got that? No, me neither, but the point is that it makes a nuclear holocaust look like a game of dominos.
一位冷静而又自信的中情局特工(约翰·大卫·华盛顿饰演，他曾是《黑暗党徒》的主演)接到了这个吓人的消息，作为主角，他直到的仅仅时这个消息。后来，他被告知散落在世界各地的某种物体随着时间的推移在不断向后移动：这些物体时在未来制造的，但是却不断地走向过去。一位滔滔不绝的科学家（克蕾曼丝·波西饰）发现，这些“时间逆转”的物体是一场战争的残留物，这场战争将在几个世纪后发生，会毁灭整个世界。我对这一点很不理解，你明白吗？不，我还是不明白，但重点是这使得核毁灭看起来有点像多米诺骨牌游戏。
3. Even that reality-smashing threat isn’t enough for Nolan, though. The Protagonist has only just had his beginner’s crash course in time travel when he dashes off on a mission which doesn’t seem to have much to do with it. First, he has to break into an arms dealer’s heavily-guarded flat in Mumbai with the aid of a louche British fixer, Robert Pattinson, who deserves his own spin-off film. Then, he has to pop to a posh restaurant in London for a briefing with a bigwig played by Nolan’s lucky charm, Michael Caine (the character is named Sir Michael in homage). Then, he’s instructed to liaise with a sadistic Russian oligarch, Kenneth Branagh, who conducts his business meetings while skimming over the waves on a top-of-the-range high-speed catamaran. But in order to do that, the Protagonist has to help the oligarch’s wife, Elizabeth Debicki, get out of her marriage by ... errrr ... crashing a jumbo jet into Oslo Airport and stealing a forged Goya drawing. Got that? Once again, me neither. But it is obvious that Nolan didn’t think of a single scene without thinking how he could make it more excessive and expensive.
尽管如此，多诺兰来说，这种毁灭现实的威胁还是不够。主人公刚上完时间旅行的初级速成课，就匆匆赶去执行一项与时间旅行没什么关系的任务。一开始，他在一个臭名昭著的英国人罗伯特·帕丁森的帮助下，闯入孟买一处戒备森严的军火商公寓（关于帕丁森的故事就可以拍一部衍生电影了）。然后，他去了伦敦的一家豪华餐厅，与一直深受诺兰垂青的迈克尔·凯恩饰演的大人物会面。之后，他奉命与残暴的俄罗斯寡头肯尼斯•布拉纳联络，布拉纳可以在滑过快速行驶的大船顶上的时候，一边开商务会议。但是，为了能够成功和寡头取得联系，主人公要帮助寡头妻子伊丽莎白·德比奇和丈夫离婚。额…帮助方式就是在奥斯陆机场撞毁一架大型喷气式飞机并偷走一张伪造的戈雅画。明白了吗?再说一遍，我也不明白。但很明显，诺兰每想到一个场景，就在想要怎样才能把它变得更烧钱。
4. He has often said that he would like to direct a Bond movie, but he must have got tired of waiting for the producers to hire him, so he has gone ahead and made one of his own. From its opening action set piece, to its whistle-stop tour of international beauty spots, to its super-rich, heavily-accented bad guy with an army of expendable henchmen, Tenet follows the 007 formula to the letter – the only notable change being that the main role has been split in two, with Washington playing the tough, dedicated government agent, and Pattinson adding the English accent, the insouciant humour and the taste for alcohol.
他经常说他想导演一部邦德电影，但他一定是不愿意再等制片人去找他拍了，所以他就自己动手拍了这部电影。从开场的动作定格，到在国际景点的短暂停留，再到那些超级富有口音浓重还有一大批追随者的大反派，《信条》严格遵循007的套路，唯一的变化是主角变成了2个，一个是华盛顿扮演的坚强忠心的中情局特工，另一个是有着英国口音的帕丁森，他为影片增添了一些漫不经心的幽默和酒精味儿。
5. It’s a while before Nolan gets past this spy-movie stuff and moves on to time inversion. But when he does get there, he takes it to characteristic extremes. He stages frenetic car chases and gun battles in which different people are racing in different directions through the timestream, and he introduces lots of head-hurting ideas which the Protagonist seems to grasp in a second, but which some of us are still struggling with days afterwards. Basically, Tenet is a Bond movie which squeezes Back to the Future 2 and Edge of Tomorrow into its last half-hour.
电影进行一段时间之后，诺兰才摆脱间谍电影的范式，开始时间逆转，但他却走向了一个极端。电影里面充满了疯狂的赛车追逐和枪战，不同的人在时间长河中向着不同的方向奔跑，他引入了很多烧脑的概念，主人公似乎一秒就能领会这些概念，而我们很多人却在看电影之后的好几天都一头雾水。总的来看，《信条》是一部将《回到未来2》和《明日边缘》塞到最后半小时的一部邦德电影。
It collapses under the weight of all the plot strands and concepts stuffed into it.
在各种情节线索和概念的重压之下，电影崩溃了
6. That sounds pretty tempting, and after a summer without summer blockbusters, I’m grateful for a film which feels like several blockbusters combined. But Nolan and his editor haven’t quite found the right balance between those blockbusters. That is, they have devoted so much of Tenet to the Bond-alike sequences that the later science-fiction sequences are frustratingly hurried, undeveloped and almost impossible to make sense of. The previous Nolan film which most resembles Tenet is Inception, but in Inception, the notion of popping in and out of meticulously designed dreams kept recurring from beginning to end. In Tenet, time inversion is pushed into the background for so long that you start to wonder if Nolan has forgotten about it. After all, we hear early on in the story that inverted objects could obliterate the universe as we know it. It’s hard to care, for the next hour or two, whether an oligarch’s wife is unhappy because she doesn’t see enough of her son, or which high-security vault contains a forged drawing.
在经历了一个没有暑期大片的夏天之后，能够看到一部结合了几部大片特色的电影听起来很是诱人。但是，诺兰和编剧没能在这些大片之间找到一个平衡点。也就是说，在《信条》中，他们把太多的内容都放在了邦德序列上，以至于后来的科幻序列故事很仓促，情节发展不成熟，也很难理解，这很让人沮丧。诺兰此前和《信条》最相似的电影是《盗梦空间》，但是，在《盗梦空间》中，进出梦境的概念是精心设计的，而且也不断重复。毕竟，我们在故事一开始就知道倒置的物体可以毁灭我们所知道的宇宙。在接下来的两个小时里面，我们很难知道寡头的妻子是否会因为不能经常见到儿子而伤心，也很难知道到底哪个保险库里面有那张伪造的画。
7. Again, you have to hand it to Nolan. To use the old expression, he puts the money on the screen, delivering the kind of noisy, extravagant and fundamentally ridiculous pulp fiction which reminds you why you go to the cinema. But it collapses under the weight of all the plot strands and concepts stuffed into it. You don’t get the impression, which you usually get from his films, that every element is precisely where it should be. Some parts of it go on too long, others not long enough. It’s a treat to see a really big film again, but a smaller one might have been better.
还是把一切交给诺兰吧。和老话说的一样，他把钱花在荧幕上，让你看那些嘈杂，奢侈而又荒谬的低俗电影，提醒你你为什么去电影院。但是，电影在所有情节和概念的重压下崩溃了。你在这部电影中没办法获得和之前一样的感受，即每一个元素都恰如其分。有些部分持续时间太长，而有的又不够长。再次看一部大片可能是一种享受，但是小点的电影也未尝不可。
精读解析
篇章结构P1: 《信条》上映，电影很让人惊奇。
P2—P3：电影的大体内容。
P4—P5：电影存在的问题：很烧脑难理解；大片大杂烩。
P6—P7：对电影的评论：一部不够成功的电影。
重点单词stuff into 把……塞入
【例句】
She had 500 leaflets to stuff into envelopes.
她得把500份传单装进信封里。
blockbuster/'blɒkbʌstə/ n. 重磅炸弹, 了不起的人或事
【例句】
That new movie is a blockbuster.
那部新片真了不起。
sprawling /'sprɔ:liŋ/ adj. 蔓生的;不规则地伸展的
sprawl vi. 伸开四肢坐〔躺〕；蔓延;杂乱无序地拓展；四肢伸展坐着(或躺着)n. (城市)杂乱无序拓展的地区；随意扩展;蔓延;蔓延物
【例句】
He sprawled his signature over the paper.
他在纸上潦草地签了名
cram with 充斥; 挤满了;
【例句】
The boat was crammed with what looked like an entire legion of Roman soldiers, who were now looking at Fishlegs with astonishment and fury.
船上挤满了看起来像是整个罗马士兵军团的人，他们现在正惊讶而愤怒地看着鱼腿。
exotic/ɪg'zɒtɪk/ adj. 由外国引进的, 非本地的；奇异的, 醒目的, 吸引人的
【例句】
There are some exotic words in English language.
英语中有一些外来词。
snazzy/'snæzɪ/ adj. 漂亮的,时髦的,艳丽的
【例句】
She was wearing a snazzy little red number.
她身着一款时髦的红色连衣裙。
shoot-out /'ʃu:taut/ n. 枪战；踢点球决胜
【例句】
A federal marshal was killed in a shoot-out.
一名联邦警察局长在枪战中被打死了。
tone it down降低语调；缓和语气；降低音调
【例句】
Dark text on a light background is best, but avoid white backgrounds — tone it down by using beige or another light color that will be easy on the eyes.
在亮色背景中使用暗色的内容是最好的，但要避免白色的背景。用米色或另一种亮色看起来效果将更不错。
indie/ˈindi/ adj. (电影业)独立的n. 独立经营的电影院等
【例句】
an album of indie rock; an indie film company.
独立制片者的作品集；独立制片公司
After almost weathering the way, indie bookstores grew by 35 percent between 2009 and 2015.
几乎风靡一时后，独立书店的数量在2009到2015年间增长了百分之三十五。
over-the-top /ˌəuvəðə'tɔp/ adj. 过多的；言过其实的；夸大其词的
【例句】
All these over-the-top demands involved midsize to large companies.
这些过多的需求总在中型公司和大型公司出现。
holocaust/'hɒləkɔːst/ n. 大屠杀；毁灭
【例句】
And people around the world marked international holocaust remembrance day.
一名路易斯安那州男子涉嫌杀死一名警官，打伤两名警官，目前已被逮捕。
manufacture/mænjʊ'fæktʃə/vt. 制造；捏造n. 制造；制造品, 产品
【例句】
The company manufactures pulp and paper products.
这个公司制造纸浆和纸产品。
wipe out v. 消灭，彻底摧毁，擦掉
【例句】
The plague once could wipe out a village.
鼠疫曾一度可以夺走整个村庄村民的生命。
in homage to 向…表示敬意
【例句】
He bowed in homage to the Unknown Soldier.
他鞠躬向阵亡的无名英雄表示尊崇。
lucky charm幸运符；护身符
【例句】
They even go to fortune tellers, buy lucky charms and follow old customs.
他们甚至会去找算命先生、买幸运符并遵循古老的风俗。
heavily-guarded戒备森严的
【例句】
Authorities say the explosion demolished a guard post outside the city's heavily-guarded police headquarters.
当局说，爆炸摧毁了该市戒备森严的警察总部外的一处警卫岗卡。
dash off v. 匆忙完成
【例句】
And I want to share some alternatives with you, so that you'll make more connections, rather than having people dash off.
我希望和你分享一些别的说法，这样你会交到更多的朋友而不是让人们对你避之不及。
louche/luːʃ/ adj. 品德有问题的,声名狼籍的
【例句】
Her father was known as a kind of louche romantic, you know, a little bit seedy, a little bit crazy, a little bit wild.
她的父亲因为一种声名狼籍的浪漫而闻名，你懂的 有点多情，有点疯狂 又有点野性。
spin-off/'spinɔ:f/ n. 副产品;让产易股,抽资脱离
【例句】
The German company will now spin off its lifts division, its most profitable business.
这家德国公司现将拆分其最盈利的电梯业务。
bigwig/'bɪgwɪg/ n. 权贵之人；有重大影响的人
【例句】
Simon Terrington, an analyst, thinks channels may survive through the benevolence of local bigwigs and the generosity of volunteers.
分析家特林顿认为，本地频道要靠当地权贵的手下留情和志愿者的慷慨解囊才能幸免于难。
liaise with与······联络
【例句】
It has opened an office in Dubai to liaise with officials in the region.
它在迪拜开设了一个办事处，与该地区的官员联络。
sadistic/sæˈdɪstɪk/ adj. 有(性)虐待狂的
【例句】
A guard who called himself Hitler would organize sadistic dinner entertainment for his colleagues.
一个自称希特勒的警卫会为他的同事们组织残忍的晚宴娱乐。
oligarch/'ɒlɪgɑːk/ n. 寡头政治执政者
【例句】
Mr Yanukovych and his party see little need for immediate concessions, and several influential business oligarchs still support the regime.
亚努科维奇的和他的政党看上去并不需要马上做出让步，并且那些影响国家命脉的行业的老总们仍然支持着现有政体。
high-speed/'hai'spi:d/ adj. 高速的
【例句】
Tom was driving his sports car at an unbelievable high speed.
汤姆正在以令人难以相信的高速驾驶着自己的跑车。
During ejection from high speed aircraft, windblast may cause injuries in thorax and abdomen.
从高速飞行的飞机上弹射时,气流吹袭可能使胸腹部致伤。
catamaran/ˌkætəmə'ræn/ n. 双体船,筏
【例句】
Each catamaran has a crew of five traveling at speeds up to 39 knots, that's like 45 miles per hour.
每艘双体船都有5名船员，他们以39节的速度航行，也就是每小时45英里。
jumbo/'dʒʌmbəʊ/ adj. 巨大的；特大的n. 庞然大物；巨型喷气式飞机；体大而笨拙的人或物
【例句】
He bought a jumbo packet of washing-power.
他买了一包特大型包装的洗衣粉。
insouciant /ɪn'suːsjənt/ adj. 无忧无虑的, 漠不关心的
【例句】
Television producers seem irresponsibly insouciant about churning out violence.
电视制片人似乎对大量制作暴力节目抱着不负责任的无所谓的态度
to the letter严格地，不折不扣地；严格按照字句
【例句】
The bank's responsibility is to verify that the exporter's documents conform to the letter of credit.
银行的责任在于核查出口商的单据是否与信用证一致。
whistle-stop n. （快车不停的）小城；乡镇；短暂停留
【例句】
Historians will find things to pick at-how could they not in a whistle-stop journey through 600 years?
历史学家会发现有东西可写-他们怎么会在短暂逗留后停下600年的历史进程呢？
henchmen/'hen(t)ʃmən/ n. 亲信；追随者；走狗；侍从
【例句】
He thrived on the adulation of his henchmen.
他是靠下属的奉承而发迹的。
set piece 舞台立体布景；具有众所周知的固定形式或风格的文学、艺术作品；（足球）定位进攻
【例句】
In his biggest set piece speech on the Middle East for two years, Barack Obama celebrated the Arab spring and promised financial aid to countries that sought to build a democracy.
在两年来最大的一次关于中东的战略演说中，巴拉克·奥巴马赞扬阿拉伯世界的春天，并且允诺向寻求建立民主的国家提供经济援助。
frenetic /frə'netɪk/ adj. 忙乱的, 狂乱的, 狂热的
【例句】
You should buy it before another frenetic art lover snatcher it up.
你应该在别的狂热的艺术爱好者抢到手之前把它买下。
meticulous /mɪ'tɪkjʊləs/ adj. 极仔细的; 一丝不苟的
【例句】
Austere officers demand meticulous conformity with military regulations.
严峻的军官要求谨遵军纪。
obliterate/ə'blɪtəreɪt/ vt. 除去;涂去;擦掉；彻底破坏或毁灭
【例句】
The town was obliterated by the bombs.
这座城市被炸毁了。
vault /vɔːlt/ n. （尤指银行的）金库，保险库；拱顶；地下室；撑竿跳v. 跳跃；成穹状弯曲
【例句】
The vault of this cathedral is very high.
这座天主教堂的拱顶非常高。
extravagant /ɪk'strævəg(ə)nt/ adj. 奢侈的, 铺张的；过度的, 过分的, 放肆的
【例句】
Don't be so extravagant, spend your money more carefully.
不要如此挥霍, 花钱要仔细点。
pulp fiction n. 《低俗小说》
【例句】
Even a group of mothers agreed that a certain amount of bad language in the well-known film Pulp Fiction was OK because the dialogue and situation made it funny.
甚至一群母亲们也一致认为，著名电影《低俗小说》中使用一定量的不良语言是可以的，因为电影中的对话和情景使这些语言有趣。
