A global threat, a mission to save the world, a crazy talented cast and espionage -- it seems like "Tenet" has it all. And it's pretty much guaranteed to blow our minds.
"You really think it's going to be a particular type of genre. Then it expands into something else and you're like, 'Oh, okay, this is kind of where we're at,'" explained supporting actor Robert Pattinson in an Entertainment Weekly interview. "Then it just completely morphs into an entirely different genre, which is very, very unexpected. My first impression was it seems like the greatest plate-spinning trick you've ever seen."
The acclaimed director, best known for "Dunkirk," “Inception,” “The Dark Knight” trilogy and “Interstellar,” has remained vague about the highly-anticipated film’s premise. With a tagline like “Time runs out,” and clips in the trailers depicting bullets flying back into guns and cars driving backwards, it’s hard not to see the movie's preoccupation with time. However, Nolan was clear that "Tenet" is not about time travel.
“This film is not a time-travel film. It deals with time and the different ways in which time can function. Not to get into a physics lesson, but inversion is this idea of material that has had its entropy inverted, so it’s running backwards through time, relative to us,” he said.
Kenneth Branagh, who plays a Russian oligarch in the film, added, “It’s an espionage piece that’s dealing with a global threat to the world…'Tenet' discusses an even worse possibility, and it is wrapped up in this mind-boggling treatment of time that continue Chris Nolan’s preoccupations in films way back to 'Memento,' through 'Interstellar' and 'Inception.'"
I'm always surprised and relieved when they manage to keep the plot of a movie of this size under wraps, especially when trailers these days basically show us the entire film in under two minutes. Not so with Nolan. The two trailers released from Warner Bros. left viewers (me) thinking, "What the heck did I just watch?" with little to be gleaned. From Entertainment Weekly's interviews with the cast, it’s clear that even the initial casting interviews were shrouded in secrecy: Washington, Debicki and Pattinson could only read the screenplay while locked in a room. What is this, a Marvel movie?
Whatever the movie's about, it’s clear that it’s going to be another must-see, mind-bending Nolan flick for cinephiles everywhere. “Tenet” is set to release on Aug 12.