Tenet is legendary director, action-packed, mind-confusing rollercoaster, it has certainly lived up to the long-built hype around it, truly proving that "Big Movies" are back.
Especially after the entire world and movie industry was affected by the COVID-19 virus, Tenet was a breath of fresh air and has continued to impress, even at the box office, generating almost $300 million dollars, following the cinemas' opening after months of waiting. It has drawn comparisons to all-time-great action movies and mind-benders and has even been called the "best action movie ever made," by Sir Micheal Caine, but there are quite a few alternatives to Nolan's newest venture.
It's The Best: No CGI
Tenet tried an audacious attempt at using practically no CGI and relying on true, real graphics and stunts. Director Christopher Nolan explained that his reasoning behind this decision was not necessarily just down to the challenge, but certain scenes were actually cheaper to play them out in "real life."
This included crashing a real plane, stopping a freeway, and even traveling to countries during the busiest times of the year. With time inversion playing a huge role in the movie, it was possibly one of the hardest feats to ever achieve in cinema, and who else but Nolan, right?
Alternative: Any Mission Impossible Film
Which film is more likely to beat out Tenet for "best spy movie of the 21st century" than any one of the most iconic spy series of all time, Mission Impossible? The franchise has redefined the spy and action genre in cinema, and with daredevil Tom Cruise as Ethan Hunt, it truly does prove itself as a great competitor for this list.
With the seventh and eighth installments incoming, any Mission Impossible film might just be better than Tenet, although it's some stiff competition.
It's The Best: Stunts Never Before Seen
Tenet sets a new bar for stunts in general, pulling off some of the most audacious stunts in cinema, from crashing a real plane, to throwing reverse punches. It opens up new doors for future movies and stunts altogether, with memorable action sequences that include things like the reverse shooting of a bullet.
All-in-all, Tenet has rung in a new era for action cinema and rewritten the plot for spy movies of the future. But Nolan movies tend to be groundbreaking in many ways, so fans are not surprised.
Alternative: Inception
How ironic that a Nolan film could beat a Nolan film at his own game. Inception boasts a star-studded cast of Oscar winners and nominees, including Leonardo DiCaprio as Cobb and Tom Hardy. A head-scratching spy action movie, Inception did something similar to Tenet in its own way, with a new take on subconsciousness and the origin of the inception of an idea.
While the ending of Inception still remains a mystery to this day, it continued the trend of the viewer having to exercise immense brainpower to understand it, just like Tenet.
It's The Best: Plot Twists You Never Saw Coming
Major plot twists play a big part in Tenet, with the most insignificant details or characters playing the biggest roles in the end. While many struggle to understand the complicated web of Tenet, the plot twists are easier to understand, but still those which the audience never saw coming.
Tenet uses these plot twists to weave a web that one might need a Ph.D. to understand, yet it produces one of the biggest and best results in cinema history, ever.
Alternative: Interstellar
Another Nolan film for the history books, Interstellar was a similar movie in of the fact that little to no one actually understood it on first viewing. Nolan's exciting take on space and wormholes, coupled with an "end-of-the-world" finale and Matthew McConaughey's wonderful acting, provided a visually stunning and complex movie, one that at an astronomical level, actually just explored a father-daughter relationship.
Hans Zimmer's wonderful score added to Nolan's genius to produce a piece of cinema that will long be ed, even if generally not understood.
It's The Best: The Palindromes
Christopher Nolan proves himself as an absolute genius in Tenet. With its SATOR square palindromes, the film gives viewers easter eggs throughout, naming the villain Andrei SATOR, (Kenneth Branagh), the organization TENET, the opening at the Tallinn OPERA, the security team, ROTAS, and Kat's love interest, AREPO.
Tenet remains one of the most complex, beautifully executed, and ground-breaking works of cinema in history, using a piece of history to tie the plot together, one that deals with time inversion and science fiction so realistically that one forgets it's even a sci-fi movie.
Alternative: Memento
Memento is regarded as one of the best Nolan films of all time, but then again, all of his films tend to receive this . It has one of the best plot twists in cinema history and it takes the viewers on a confusing, backward journey, where the start is the end and the end is the start.
It's a film that most cinephiles hold close to their hearts, and a classic, all things considered. Made with a low budget, unlike Tenet, Guy Pierce gives one of his best performances as Leonard Shelby, a distraught husband looking to find his wife's killer. This confusing masterpiece may just be the movie to beat Tenet's complexity and audacity.
It's The Best: It's Unconventional
Tenet broke new barriers and forced viewers to look at action cinema and spy movies, in general, from a different never-seen-before perspective. Spinning a web that combines themes of both time jumps and inversion with its centuries-old SATOR square, Tenet offers the best of both worlds, one that no one knew existed. Although certainly audacious and expensive, Tenet did what little other films could do, changing an entire genre.
It is due to this great feat of wonderful action, attention to detail, and overall cinema experience, especially in IMAX, that puts Tenet at the top of the list of the very best.
Alternative: Any James Bond Movie
James Bond remains unmatched in its action feats for their time and iconic role, with the latest Bond actor being Daniel Craig, and speculation as to the next. From Goldeneye to Skyfall, from Dr. No to No Time To Die, the gracefully brutal and chiseled British spy that is James Bond remains a high standard to beat for any spy movie.
But, while some long-time fans of the books and movies are happy to it defeat, others are poised for victory, waiting for Daniel Craig's last outing to make a final verdict.
