Tetris movie review – A thrilling tale of licensing and politics

Tetris, the globally famous video game, has been given the big screen treatment in a new biopic directed by Jon S. Baird. Set in the waning years of the Soviet Union and dealing with complicated international business deals and political intrigue, “Tetris” is a fascinating story about how an addictive puzzle game conquered the world.

The story of Tetris

The movie portrays the story of Henk Rogers, a Dutch-Indonesian video game designer who faces obstacles in licensing the game amidst cutthroat dealmakers, Soviet agents and Cold War tensions. The film’s first act convinces us that the game is worth fighting for, while the rest of the story takes us to the heart of Moscow when tensions within the Soviet Union are high.

The focus on Henk’s point of view is considered as a miscalculation by some viewers, as the more compelling story is that of Alexey Pajitnov, who invented Tetris in 1984. Alexey had no power in negotiations and faced real danger from his superiors and KGB agents who wanted their own piece of the profits.

A Cold War thriller

“Tetris” plays like a thriller version of “The Social Network,” with Baird using creative stylization to bring 1980s-style graphics and 8-bit retro-style visuals into play.

The movie stars Welsh actor Taron Egerton as Henk Rogers, Toby Jones as his chief competitor, and Roger Allam as Robert Maxwell, a corrupt media mogul.

Complications in licensing

Henk runs a struggling software company in Tokyo in 1988 and sees potential in Tetris after playing it for five minutes at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas. He decides to team up with Nintendo’s operations in Seattle to obtain the handheld rights for Tetris.

The story deals with the complications of negotiating with a government on the brink of collapse and the risks that come with it, all for the sake of licensing a video game. The movie treats the licensing process with all the intensity and diplomatic urgency of negotiating to free dissidents or dial back the arms race.

Thrilling energy

Despite its two-hour runtime leaving many emotional and thematic threads dangling, the movie makes up for it with its energy and command of thriller elements. The pacing is well-crafted, from the thrilling heist scene in Moscow’s Red Square to tense negotiations between Henk, Nintendo executives and Russian bureaucrats.

The postscript

The movie ends with a credits sequence that tells us what happened to all the main reallife players in this story. We learn that Robert Maxwell, who was a real-life equivalent of “Succession’s” Logan Roy, stole $900m from his companies’ pension funds and had debts of $5 billion, tanking his media empire.

Available on Apple TV+

“Tetris” arrives on Apple TV+ on March 31st. Overall, the biopic gives an entertaining look at how one man bet his reputation, company, and financial future on a video game that would go on to become an icon in pop culture. It is a fascinating peek behind-the-scenes at how some of the world’s most beloved properties are born.

Image Source: Wikimedia Commons