Apple TV+: Tetris (2023) - Reviewed

Courtesy of Apple TV+

Tetris or Тетрис created in 1984 by Soviet software engineer Alexey Pajitnov is one of the landmark quintessential videogames in the history of the format.  An exceedingly simple but addictive and challenging puzzle game that’s still among the most ported and sold games of all time, it is known as one of the first truly great videogames of the 1980s.  Packaged with the Nintendo Game Boy handheld system, it soon evolved into a cornerstone of the gaming industry and helped its founder Alexey Pajitnov found the Tetris Company with Dutch videogame designer Henk Rogers.  

The story of how Alexey and Henk did (or didn’t?) help secure the game outside of Russia to the rest of the world is a story that’s equally fascinating and engaging but won’t necessarily be found in this new “movie” from Stan & Ollie director Jon S. Baird, a film that functions more as entertaining historical fiction than a factual recount.  Penned by Genius television creator Noah Pink and produced by Kingsmen: The Secret Service director Matthew Vaughn, this version of the story of Tetris is much closer to Argo than Computer Chess. 
 
It's 1988 Las Vegas where Henk Rogers (Taron Egerton) is touring his new videogame when he discovers and gets sidetracked by a hot new videogame called Tetris created by Soviet programmer Alexey Pajitnov (Nikita Efremov) who works for ELORG in Moscow.  Initially the film is a pitch for Tetris with Rogers explaining to gaming CEOs the boundless value the game is worth and almost makes the viewer want to pick up a copy on whatever console or computer they have.  Rogers is aware of a thick rights war that Tetris is embroiled in between Mirrorsoft and Nintendo and after putting his wife and children’s apartment up for collateral he decides to travel to Moscow personally to obtain the rights himself. 
 
From here the film shifts gears from being ostensibly a lighthearted deep dive into videogame historical lore into a stereotypical Cold War thriller replete with threatening KGB agents and the time-honored tradition in American movies about Russia where the colors are desaturated if not sickly green.  For the most part the onscreen kinship between Egerton and Efremov is good and Toby Jones as Robert Stein, one of the key players in the saga of acquiring the rights to the game, is fun to see.  Still, the inclusion of car chases and death threats by a sociopathic KGB agent played by Why Don’t You Just Die? actor Igor Grabuzov (most of which was discredited by the real Alexey and Henk prior to the film’s release) moves further away from the classiness of The Social Network into the sillier realm of The Interview. 

 
While putting on film the so-called “Tetris Effect” of gaming blocks falling from the sky onto buildings, which is given the Pixels visual effects treatment at times including Tetris blocks forming on the cars during the car chase, Tetris it should be noted from the get-go is entertainment.  If you want the real story, pick up a book on the legal battles and efforts made to export the game officially around the globe.  That’s not to say the film is completely meritless though.  Taron Edgerton and Nikita Efremov are quite good in it as two men from opposite sides of the pond who come together over their mutual love for the game Tetris and the largely Russian cast for the Moscow scenes (actually shot in Glasgow) are generally good with the aforementioned Grabuzov having fun channeling Erich von Stroheim in his KGB agent. 
 
Visually despite the cliches of making Russia into a dimly lit colorless Hellhole, the film looks nice and is shot handsomely by Danny Boyle’s cinematographer Alwin H. Küchler in panoramic widescreen.  Given his own affiliation with the computer historical biographical drama on Boyle’s Steve Jobs, it stands to reason Küchler would be a good fit for the film’s playful if not anachronistic visual aesthete.  The heavily electronically rendered soundtrack by Lorne Balfe of Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves is where the film manages to soak in Easter Egg charms including but not limited to reworking the original Tetris game themes over into several diverse compositions.  The result is, again, like Pixels with the knowing nods to videogame lore but it is most certainly the film’s strongest asset.

Given a minimal festival screening before going straight to Apple TV+ exclusively (for now), Tetris is about as truthful about its subject as Miles Ahead was about Miles Davis being a mad gangster on the run rather than a musician, but despite this Tetris is a mostly fun dose of historical fiction.  What the folks at Apple TV+ ought to do (HBO Max and Netflix did this alongside their shows/movies) is release an actual documentary about the story of Tetris so as to not confuse viewers over the facts.  That this comes from the same director who gave us such a modest and appropriately understated and nuanced biopic of Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy previously only cements our disappointment with how Tetris lands.  Still, if you’ve never played the game and watching this makes you want to try it out, that’s a good thing. 

--Andrew Kotwicki