tenet

11 May

Tenet: Is the Protagonist the Real Villain?

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This article contains Tenet spoilers. The Protagonist might be one of the most unimaginatively named main characters of all time, but it’s worth pointing out that he is referred to as “the Protagonist,” which is notably different from being called “the Hero.” Of course it’s not hard to argue he’s a good guy who does good guy things. He is fighting against a gangster who regularly kills people and has trapped his wife in an abusive marriage. He saved all those unconscious hostages from those bombs (maybe, we’re still figuring that out). His goal is stated, multiple and explicit times,…

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08 May

Tenet: Robert Pattinson’s Neil Timeline Explained

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This feature contains Tenet spoilers. I think this is the end of a beautiful friendship. Those are the (near) final words of the ever wry Neil in Tenet. Riffing on the last line of dialogue from another Warner Bros. film, Michael Curtiz’s Casablanca, it’s a wink and a nudge from Christopher Nolan toward classic Hollywood cinema. But it’s also an admission by the Robert Pattinson character that he is at least vaguely aware that he’s headed toward his death, and though he is about to die, his relationship with the Protagonist (John David Washington) has only just begun. On first…

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05 May

Tenet Is Christopher Nolan’s Unofficial James Bond Movie

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This article contains Tenet spoilers. Throughout the Daniel Craig era of James Bond, the influence of Christopher Nolan has been hard to miss. A year after Nolan reinvented Dark Knight mythology with Batman Begins, and created the industry term of a “reboot” in the process, 007 had his own back-to-basics reset in Casino Royale. And following The Dark Knight’s praise for reconfiguring its iconography again for a post-War on Terror world, Skyfall would receive similar acclaim a few years later for its chilly, realpolitik tone. But no matter how many developments in the Bond canon end up attributed to Nolan’s…

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04 May

Tenet Algorithm Explained

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This article contains spoilers for Christopher Nolan’s Tenet. The Protagonist didn’t even know what it was when he first saw it. John David Washington’s lead character without a name thinks he’s looking at a bizarre “encapsulation” when he first sees a piece of the “Algorithm” in Tenet’s opening moments—which is to say he thinks it’s a nuclear weapon. Hidden inside of a backpack at an opera house under siege, what else could justify this level of violence and chaos during the movie’s confounding start? But then, that’s the type of linear thinking which the Protagonist and his audience are asked…

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02 May

Does Free Will Exist in Tenet?

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This article contains Tenet spoilers. Tenet is now streaming on HBO Max, and with its arrival comes a lot of the old questions and debates around the film. Questions such as “How does Inversion actually work?,” “What was the Algorithm?,” and “What was even happening in that opening scene?” have all been reopened for a new audience. But Christopher Nolan’s Tenet is a film whose implications go far deeper than that. The movie is based around the concept of “Inversion,” reversing entropy, which in the film means you can reverse the flow of time. This idea results in all sorts…

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01 May

Tenet Opening Opera Scene Explained

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This article contains Tenet spoilers. You can read our spoiler-free review here. Christopher Nolan has a reputation for making complicated, hard to understand movies, but in all honesty, that reputation is unearned. In Memento, the scenes filmed in color are running in reverse order, the scenes filmed in black and white are running forwards, and the film ends when they meet in the middle. Inception is a pretty straight forward heist once you get your head round the idea that the dreams are nested inside each other like Russian dolls, each running a little faster than the one inside of…

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06 Nov

Tenet Online Release: How to Stream the Christopher Nolan Movie

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Christopher Nolan’s Tenet was supposed to be the movie that saved moviegoing. The picture that would jumpstart an interest in returning to cinemas around the world, and enjoying the shared communal experience of watching films with strangers in the dark. It didn’t really pan out that way, at least in the U.S. and parts of Europe, but it still grossed nearly $350 million worldwide. Granted, this is far below the standards of usual Nolan sci-fi epic like Interstellar, which earned $678 million, but hey, that means a lot of folks are about to see it for the first time ever…

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14 Sep

Link Tank: Warner Bros. Declines to Share Detailed Tenet Box Office Numbers

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After a less-than-ideal premiere weekend, Warner Bros is declining to share detailed box office numbers for Tenet. “Warner Bros. continues to make interesting decisions around the release and distribution of Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, this time breaking the generally agreed-upon norms of how box office profits are reported. Apparently, other studios in the business are not happy.” Read more at Gizmodo. Ever wonder why your dog digs and scratches at its bed before going to lay down? Here’s the behavioral science explained. “It’s easy to understand why your dog wants to dig a hole in your backyard. Watching them attempt the…

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14 Sep

Mulan Box Office Flops in China While Tenet Drops in US

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Disney and Warner Bros. both recently attempted to discover new routes to blockbuster success in a time of pandemic. Both have showcased how the path forward remains troublingly unclear. Hence the less-than-rosy numbers facing both Disney’s Mulan and Christopher Nolan’s Tenet after the second weekend of domestic release for each. In Mulan’s case, the film that was made specifically to appeal to a wider Chinese audience flopped at China’s box office this weekend. Grossing only $23.2 million over the past three days, Mulan fell well below the Chinese debut of other American blockbusters. By contrast Avengers: Endgame grossed an astounding…

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08 Sep

Tenet Box Office Opens at $20 Million, Raises Questions About Industry’s Future

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This holiday weekend, Christopher Nolan’s Tenet captured nearly 70 percent of the U.S. market share of movie theater tickets across the country. In normal circumstances that news would accompany a staggering box office figure—a Labor Day record-breaker to go along with the No. 1 debut. But during the current coronavirus pandemic, more than 50 percent of the market accounts for $20.2 million in box office receipts over four days. Is this the “new normal” or the first tentative step toward moviegoers slowly returning to theaters? It’s hard to say right now, but it’s just part of the story for Warner…

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29 Aug

Tenet

Max SchindlerMovie reviewstenet

Armed with only one word - Tenet - and fighting for the survival of the entire world, the Protagonist (John David Washington) journeys through a twilight world of international espionage on a mission that will unfold in something beyond real time. Not time travel. Inversion.Rated: PG-13Release Date: Sep 02, 2020

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28 Aug

Tenet’s ‘Inversion’ Logic Explained

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The central conceit of Tenet is the concept of “Inversion”. Obviously with this being a major plot point we can’t go any further into explaining what “Inversion” is without warning you that this will be a spoiler for the film. Major spoilers for Tenet to follow It’s time travel, all right? “Inversion” is what Chris Nolan calls time travel. Except it’s actually not quite that, and the twists on how time travel is used in this film make for a very Chris Nolan experience. Most time travel in movies relies on one of two mechanisms. The first is some version…

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27 Aug

Tenet Meaning Explained: Putting the Title in the Context of the Movie

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Christopher Nolan’s latest movie, Tenet, has now arrived in UK cinemas. It’s a great big spectacular espionage film turned sci-fi extravaganza which comes with a lot of questions, the most obvious of which could be ‘what does Tenet even mean?’ In the world of the movie, the word has multiple meanings. Here we break them down. Spoilers for Tenet to follow. Tenet the word Very basically, it means “a principle or belief, especially one of the main principles of a religion or philosophy”. In the film it’s less about religion as such and more about philosophy – a belief, a…

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26 Aug

Tenet Ending Explained

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Contains spoilers for Tenet from the start In some ways it feels a bit unfair that the film that is supposed to bring everybody back to the cinema is one that you have to watch twice, possibly once backwards, to understand the plot. Even more than Nolan’s other work, Tenet is a film of clockwork-plotting, non-linear storytelling and the feeling that if you blinked at some point you’ve now missed essential elements of the plot. Luckily, we’re here to talk you through the complicated bits, point out the bits you might have missed, and generally give you everything you need…

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22 Aug

Tenet Movie Reviews Divided on Time-Bending Plot and Ambition

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The first wave of reviews is in for the most anticipated and mysterious release of 2020. While movigoers are still pleasantly unspoiled on just what exactly Christopher Nolan’s Tenet is about, or even what its title means, initial critical consensus is emerging less than a week out from the film’s international debut in markets that include the UK and other parts of Europe and Asia. Depending on who you ask, the opinion ranges from this is a fine piece of eye-candy and Nolan brain-teasing to it’s evidence Nolan has devolved into self-parody. Intriguingly, all seem to agree that it not…

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21 Aug

Tenet Review: Christopher Nolan’s Sci-fi Spy Movie Explodes Into Cinemas

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For better or worse, Tenet is the most important film of 2020. Sure, it’s the new Christopher Nolan film, an event movie shrouded in secrecy with a terrific cast which in any year would be an important mark on the cinematic calendar. But this year, when cinemas have been closed for months, where streaming services are king and several big releases have eschewed a theatrical opening altogether or been pushed back to 2021 and beyond, all eyes are on Tenet. Or rather Warner Bros. is *hoping* all eyes, or at least a decent number of eyes, will be on Tenet…

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18 Aug

Tenet to Open Early in Select Cities Starting in August

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Tenet, the several-times-delayed COVID-era cinematic boon for the languishing exhibitor industry, is set to premiere slightly earlier than its currently scheduled September release date—three days earlier, to be precise. With the film’s most recently-set premiere for September 3 now likely to come to fruition, Warner Bros. has announced that Tenet will hold early-access screenings in select U.S. cities on Monday, Aug. 31, Tuesday, Sept. 1 and Wednesday, Sept. 2. The move appears motivated by a desire to support theaters, which have been hemorrhaging ever since the March-launched lockdowns, and are indeed facing an unprecedented existential crisis. As Jeff Goldstein, President,…

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05 Aug

Seth Rogen Jokingly Asks If Christopher Nolan Would ‘Kill His Greatest Fans’ with Tenet

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Seth Rogen’s An American Pickle was considering a direct-to-consumer distribution before it was the new normal. That is to say even before the coronavirus pandemic forced Sony Pictures’ hand in relinquishing the rights to the odd, pensive comedy to HBO Max, Rogen and the studio were already looking to part ways on the particular project. Which is pretty far from the odyssey of theatrical delays and frustrations Christopher Nolan’s Tenet is on. It’s an unusual comparison to make, but Rogen is the first to point to the lack of similarities while speaking with The Hollywood Reporter. Talking to that trade…

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05 Aug

Mulan and Tenet Show Competing Visions for Future of Movies

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Historically, Labor Day is seen as one of the slowest weekends on the moviegoing calendar. Often considered the endpoint of summer in American culture, the three-day holiday before kids go back to school is usually reserved for abandoned films that never quite worked as intended for Hollywood studios. It’s the time of cinematic dregs. At least that was the conventional wisdom before 2020, and before Tenet and Mulan. Indeed, history has changed and changed again with Warner Brothers’ Tenet and Disney’s Mulan now set to open during the same Labor Day timeframe, but in markedly different rollouts. While WB announced…

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29 Jul

Tenet Screening Draws Rave Reviews from IMAX Employees

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Staffers for the large-screen theatrical format IMAX were among the lucky first viewers to get a look at Christopher Nolan’s Tenet, his sci-fi action thriller which will arrive in theaters on September 2 in North America (a week earlier internationally), pending coronavirus developments. According to Deadline, IMAX employees were given a chance to see the film in post-production due to Nolan’s longstanding ties with and strong support of the format. The director has filmed major portions of each of his films (starting with 2008’s The Dark Knight) using the massive IMAX cameras, with Tenet shot entirely in the format. The…

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