'Tenet' Opening Scene Now Available Online – Watch It Here

Tenet, Christopher Nolan's latest big, slightly confusing sci-fi action extravaganza, hits 4K, Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital this week, so Warner Bros. has gone ahead and released the opening scene online. Nolan's action-packed prologues have become their own mini-movies in some ways – the opening scenes of both The Dark Knight and The Dark Knight rises were released theatrically months before either of those titles opened, and this Tenet prologue played in certain IMAX theaters before Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker. Now, you can watch it below.

Tenet drops on 4K, Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital today, which means that if you avoided the film's limited theatrical run – and I don't blame you if you did – you'll now have a chance to check it out.

I saw Tenet at a small, socially-distanced screening, and at the time, the film left me a little cold. I'm a fan of most of Nolan's work, and I was excited for Tenet, but the end result felt way too muddled – eve for Nolan. As I wrote in my spoiler review:

So when, then, does Tenet disappoint? Why does it feel so...empty? I do not subscribe to the idea that Nolan is a cold filmmaker. He has a sense of humor – even Tenethas a few laugh-out-loud funny jokes. And he's capable of conveying big, unapologetically emotionally beats – Interstellar is practically wallpapered with them, as is Dunkirk. But watching Tenet often feels like watching a talented magician you've marveled at multiple times before, and then suddenly catching on to how he does his tricks. This is not an "emperor has no clothes" moment for Nolan, but it might be a wake-up call. Maybe it's time to scale things down a bit?

All that said, I've since revisited the film on 4K, and you know what? It's still not great! But it plays a little better at home. I know Nolan himself would probably hurl his cup of tea into my face for saying that, but watching the movie at home, with subtitles on, and without wearing a mask the entire time – something I did at the screening – makes a difference.

To be clear: I'm not knocking mask-wearing! It's very important, and if everyone would do it, we'd be in a lot less trouble right now. But the fact of the matter is that the entire time I sat in the theater, I couldn't tune out the fact that I had a piece of fabric plastered over my nose and mouth. It was a tad distracting, to say the least. Now, free of that distraction, I was able to focus more on the movie. I still think it's one of Nolan's weaker efforts, but it's not quite as weak as I remember. So, uh, progress, I guess?

Anyway, this opening scene gives you a pretty good idea of what the film is like: lots of intense Nolan action, lots of pulse-pounding music, lots of muffled dialogue. In Tenet, John David Washington is the Protagonist. "Armed with only one word—Tenet—and fighting for the survival of the entire world, the Protagonist journeys through a twilight world of international espionage on a mission that will unfold in something beyond real time. Not time travel. Inversion."