REVIEW: Taron Egerton Thrills in Apple TV+ New Film Tetris
Tetris is Apple TV+’s latest film, starring award-winning actor Taron Egerton (Rocketman), chronicling the rise of the global gaming phenomena by the same name, which was created in Russia and sparked a worldwide licensing war in the 1980s.
Tetris tells the story of the creation of one of the most popular games in history that were designed by a Russian programmer and puzzle game creator named Alexey Pajitnov (Nikita Efremov) who went on to distribute it via floppy disk during the Cold War. It didn’t take long for one businessman Robert Stein (Toby Jones), to buy the video game, licensing for $10,000 which later spins out of control into a bidding war with numerous global entities, including Kevin and Robert Maxwell (Anthony Boyle and Roger Allam) a UK based father and son publishing powerhouse all under the watchful eye of Russian officials and the KGB who’s goal is to not sell Russia to the highest bidder.
Along comes Henk Rogers (Taron Egerton) who has already had one failed video game venture in which he still owes quite a penny to his investors, and who runs into a Tetris sales convention at a casino in Las Vegas and falls in love at first sight. Tetris in all of its simplicity had a magnetism that still makes it one of the world’s most popular games today and Rogers was willing to bet his house on it. He literally signed away his home and savings along with the money he was supposed to pay back his original video game venture debt with, to purchase what he thought were the licensing rights to video game consoles and arcades in Japan.
Excited possibly a bit too soon, Rogers is elbowed out of the arcade deal by the Maxwells, which will cost him and his little start-up, Bullet-Proof Software, millions and make it very hard to pay back his investors. Arcade earnings were his straight cash cow that has now slipped through his fingers.
One or two pivots later and Rogers is staring down the eye of the prototype for the Nintendo Gameboy, fully loaded and ready to launch with Mario Brothers as its official game. Rogers convinces Nintendo that with Tetris loaded on the Gameboy, they would be reaching an entire audience that goes far beyond the kids that play Mario Brothers and that with Tetris, they will reach millions of users from all age demographics.
The agreement is pitched in the air and Rogers must get the handheld rights to solidify the deal and must backtrack to all of the distributors to find out who has the handheld rights which will blow any video console and arcade deal out of the water. Some of the deals are completely shady and the billionaires are not quite what they seem; the math is straight “not mathing.”
Rogers is led right back to Russia and on a hunt for the owners of the game, Alexey Pajitnov and ELORG, and is completely oblivious that he is walking over the Iron Curtain into a world that he is not ready for. From secret translators ready to blackmail him to literally being told that Tetris doesn’t exist, to then being told he stole the license for video consoles, Rogers may have bit off more than he can chew when things get downright violent.
Taron Egerton leads this film with charisma and energy that doesn’t ever lose steam or get boring. You are captivated and want him to win right down to the end, even with the struggles he has with his family being on the receiving end of KGB death threats.
The cast is rounded out by equally stellar performances with Nikita Efremov as Alexey Pajitnov, Sofia Lebedeva as ‘Sasha,’ Ben Miles as ‘Howard Lincoln,’ Ken Yamamura as ‘Minoru Arakawa,’ Igor Grabuzov as ‘Valentin Trifonov,’ Oleg Shtefanko as ‘Belikov,’ and Ayane Nagabuchi as ‘Akemi Rogers.’
Directed by Jon S. Baird, Tetris was a fast-paced thriller with beautiful cinematography (Alwin Küchler) and a well-written script (Noah Pink) that perfectly takes you on a muted journey through the late ’80s across global continents during a time when it was the beginning of the dog-eat-dog world of gaming with brands like Atari and Nintendo and one tough fight over intellectual property. You don’t have to be a gamer to enjoy this history-inspired nostalgic chunk of cinema.
Stream Tetris exclusively on March 31 on Apple TV+ here and watch the trailer below.
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