Movie Review: ‘Tetris’

Taron Egerton stars as Henk Rogers, the American businessman who struggled to license the game from thorny Russian bureaucracy.

(L to R) Taron Egerton and Nikita Efremov in 'Tetris,' premiering March 31, 2023 on Apple TV+.

Releasing on Apple TV+ on March 31st, ‘Tetris’ tells the unbelievable –– but actually true –– story of how one Dutch-American businessman outsmarted Russian authorities and ruthless media rivals to bring the iconic game to the States and beyond, with the help of the man who created it.

When you hear the title ‘Tetris’, your mind might flash to the current spate of video game adaptations –– the ‘Sonic the Hedgehog’ franchise, for example, ‘Pokemon: Detective Pikachu’ (which was successful enough to spawn its own sequel, now in development, or the latest attempt to turn ‘Super Mario Bros.’ into a movie, with the animated take due in theaters shortly.

But if you’ve ever played, or even so much as heard of ‘Tetris’ the game, you’ll know it presents quite the challenge, featuring no narrative or much of anything on which to base a movie besides the player having to arrange falling colored blocks so they form lines and vanish.

The smartest thing the filmmakers behind the new movie did was not to focus on the game itself but on the unlikely story of how it was brought outside of Russia, where it was invented by Alexey Pajitnov.

Tetris

"The game you couldn't put down. The story you couldn't make up."

R1 hr 58 minMar 31st, 2023

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Watch Tetris Online

What happened with the game of Tetris?

With a script from Noah Pink and ‘Stan & Ollie’ director Jon S. Baird behind the camera, ‘Tetris’ stars ‘Kingsman’s Taron Egerton as Henk Rogers, a Dutch-born, American- raised entrepreneur who, in the ‘80s found himself living in Japan with his family. A tech geek and games nerd long before those terms hit the mainstream, Rogers was constantly on the lookout for the video game that would change the world. If he saw it early enough — went the reasoning — he might be able to snatch up the rights for his failing company Bullet-Proof Software and become rich overnight.

So when Henk sees an early demonstration of ‘Tetris’ at a Las Vegas gaming convention, he’s hooked and becomes convinced that it could be his ticket to riches. Which would be helpful, since he’s already gambled much of his family’s finances on other titles that haven’t paid off.

Yet when Henk thinks he’s secured the rights to ‘Tetris’ in Japan, he soon learns that he was quite wrong –– and that the Russian government is intent on keeping the profits for itself. Add to that a serious challenge from British media magnate Richard Maxwell (played by Roger Allam), and scheming son Kevin (Anthony Boyle).

Together with creator Pajitnov (Nikita Efremov), Henk will have to outwit KGB spies, rich tycoons and crafty other businessmen to bring ‘Tetris’ to the masses outside of the Soviet Union –– right around the time that empire is collapsing.

(L to R) Togo Igawa, Nino Furuhata and Taron Egerton in 'Tetris,' premiering March 31, 2023 on Apple TV+.

A funnier ‘Social Network’

Probably the closest reference point for this is 2010’s ‘The Social Network’, which charted the difficult birth of Facebook. While ‘Tetris’ can’t claim a script as quick or darkly witty as the Aaron Sorkin/David Fincher effort, it makes up for it with charm and warmth.

Egerton, once more playing a real-life figure after ‘Eddie the Eagle’, ‘Black Bird’ and most notably ‘Rocketman’ (where he was unfairly overlooked by the Academy Awards for his portrayal of Elton John), is typically pleasurable to watch as Henk, charismatically pushing his luck in the face of tremendous odds.

Beyond him, Efremov is the heart of the movie (albeit in a smaller role), giving humanity to Pajitnov, a man who knows that his game is his key to freedom, but needs Henk’s help to make that happen.

Allam, buried under convincing prosthetics, is suitably windy as Maxwell, and the script adds enough detail to make him have resonance to American audiences who may not be familiar with the man himself (though they’ll recognize his Trumpian archetype). Boyle is perfectly slimy as Kevin, smug, selfish and carrying a gigantic chip on his shoulder as he jets around the world spending daddy’s money.

(L to R) Taron Egerton, Sofia Lebedeva and Nikita Efremov in 'Tetris,' premiering March 31, 2023 on Apple TV+.

Baird also brings no small amount of flair to the film, which could have been just a lot of people in rooms arguing about the rights to a game of blocks falling in a line. He uses the 8-bit conceit to show Henk’s attempts as levels on a game itself, and while most of the movie is relatively straightforward, a late-turn car chase is further enlivened by the use of graphics for the vehicles.

While it’s sometimes odd that it doesn’t appear anywhere else in the movie besides that one scene and the transitions, it’s not so out of place as to disrupt anyone’s enjoyment of the movie. And one extended, superbly edited sequence presents three concurrent meetings in three different rooms, whose swinging and slamming doors almost evoke a French bedroom farce (and yes, the three concurrent meetings actually happened).

‘Tetris’ nevertheless still has a few issues. Aside from Egerton, Efremov and the Maxwells, everyone else is pretty much reduced to ciphers, such as Henk’s supportive, sometimes frustrated wife Akemi (Ayane Nagabuchi) and the various Russian agents/government officials who are stonewalling any attempt to nab the rights. Credit, though, to Sofia Lebedeva as Sasha, who Henk hires as a translator but turns out to be something more. She makes a relatively predictable character likeable and then hissable over the course of the film.

Yet the biggest triumph is digging out some actual tension from a story where you can guess the ending –– especially since ‘Tetris’ is indeed famously everywhere in the world and those of a certain age will remember it popping up as part of the Gameboy package when the gadgets were considered the height of gaming tech.

A snappy, scrappy, truth-is-stranger-than-fiction story, ‘Tetris’ is part-biopic, part-comedy and all in all a great addition to Apple’s growing roster of movies. It likely won’t go on to the sort of awards glory enjoyed by ‘CODA’, but it’s still a good yarn.

‘Tetris’ receives 7.5 out of 10 stars.