Tetris (2023)

Streaming Now on Apple TV+

Rating: 7.9

Who knew there was such a wild story behind the game Tetris?! I know lots was embellished for the movie, but still even at a base level it was crazy that it took this much to bring the now iconic game to the public eye. So much happens later in the movie that makes you completely forget they are doing it all over Tetris… it’s just insane how much happened over a game. You can tell which parts are too good to be true, but it doesn’t matter because it becomes really entertaining so you just go with it! The film starts out in a fun way, introducing the developers and backstory with the use of 8-bit animation which I thought was a very creative visual choice. However as the movie progressed it has a very jarring tonal shift and lost a lot of the early charm, becoming a flat out political thriller. I wish I could say that element worked, but the film dragged a lot more after this shift. The consistent part throughout all of it though? Taron Egerton. He carried the entire movie with a great performance, he’s just simply an amazing actor! The movie itself is pretty solid. It takes itself a bit too seriously at times but tells a crazy story of the history behind the iconic game that overall I quite enjoyed. Not perfect, but worth a watch! Think Argo meets Pixels…

•

Premise: The story of how one of the world's most popular video games found its way to players around the globe. Businessman Henk Rogers and Tetris inventor Alexey Pajitnov join forces in the USSR, risking it all to bring Tetris to the masses.

•

Apple TV+

Directed by Jon S. Baird

Written by Noah Pink

Cast: Taron Egerton, Nikita Efremov, Sofia Lebedeva, Anthony Boyle, Toby Jones

Runtime: 1hr 58min

Rating: 18A

Biography, Drama, History, Thriller

•

IMDb Rating: 7.4/10

Rotten Tomatoes Score: 81%

RT Audience Score: 90%

RT Critic Average: 6.7/10

RT Audience Average: 4.3/5

Metacritic Score: 61

Letterboxd: 3.5/5

•

Fun Fact: The real Henk Rogers and Alexey Pazhitnov reviewed the script, and Rogers said much of it was embellished, "It's a Hollywood script; it's a movie. It's not about history, so a lot of [what's in the movie] never happened. But the filmmakers asked us a bunch of questions about what it was really like... They tried their best to accept our changes when they had to do with authenticity. But when it started getting into [creative flourishes like] the car chase and all that, it was like, 'OK, now it's all them.' We couldn't change anything."