"Tetris" Is Just as Fun as Playing Tetris
The new Apple TV+ movie is a ridiculous, contrived, and rip-roaring good time that knows just how seriously to take itself.
In the year 2023, movies depend on brands. An original idea isn’t enough to sell tickets: a film has to be a sequel, a prequel, attached to a bigger franchise, or—as this past week has shown us—based on a videogame. With Dungeons and Dragons: Honor Among Thieves (yes, I know it’s a tabletop board game) and The Super Mario Bros. Movie shaping up to be two of this season’s biggest releases, established-IP filmmaking feels more dominant than ever, and this isn’t something that fills me with hope. Despite whatever middling-to-positive reviews these movies have been getting (some have even called Honor Among Thieves a swashbuckling success) I’m not optimistic at the fact that our multiplex screens are increasingly dominated by adaptations of video games. Where did the original ideas go?
Turns out a fertile middle ground may exist after all. Tetris, the recently-released Apple TV+ film, is not a direct adaptation of the titular block-falling video game itself (thank God; I’m not sure I could stomach whatever Emoji Movie bullshit that would be); it is instead a biopic about the story surrounding the block-falling video game, and it is the most fun that I have had at the movies all year.
(I find it weird to say that I had fun “at the movies” when I’m talking about a movie exclusively available on streaming services, but here I am using it all the same. It’s quite the shame, too, because Tetris is the exact kind of crowd-pleasing, star-driven spectacle that I’d love to see in theaters. This week saw the release of Air, another biopic about the business dealings surrounding an iconic brand image; maybe the success of that movie will speak to whether Tetris would have done well in theaters.)
Set in 1988 amid the backdrop of the Cold War, Tetris follow about Henk Rogers (Taron Egerton), the Dutch-Indonesian-American game designer who helped license the titular video game for the world to play. In the movie, the moment that Henk decides to license it is the moment he falls in love. At a trade show in Vegas, he plays the video game for five minutes before experiencing a sense of liberal-capitalist euphoria that inspires him towards an entrepenurial crusade. “It’s poetry,” he says. “Art and math all working in magical synchronicity.” And with those words, Henk sets about on a mythic quest to secure the game’s licensing and spread its genius around the globe—and make millions of dollars in the process. Standing in his way are nefarious British billionaires and scheming Soviet bureaucrats, each of them aching to get their hands on this most precious object. Think Raiders of the Lost Ark, but set during the Cold War and with a video game replacing the Ark of the Covenant.
Tetris exists within the great tradition of Hollywood stories that are “based on a true story,” but only to the extent that it serves the narrative. In the case of this film, that means making the Soviets that much meaner, the billionaires that much richer, and transforming the nerdy game designer behind The Tetris Company into Taron Egerton. He’s a great choice for the role, bringing his typical leading-man charisma to a character who believes utterly and unapologetically that this product will change the world. When Henk whispers “It’s the perfect game” from behind his mustache and insatiable can-do attitude, you, like him, want to believe that this game can bridge the Soviet-American divide.
It’s a good thing to have such a magnetic performer in the lead role, because a movie as exposition-heavy as Tetris probably wouldn’t work without it. The film begins with an impressively long information dump in which Henk describes the entire backstory of the film to his banker, explaining how Russian programmer Alexey Pajitnov (Nikita Efremov) invented the video game Tetris in a state-owned Soviet computer company. The game was then licensed to Czech businessman Robert Stein (Toby Jones), who then signed a contract with British media tycoon Robert Maxwell (Roger Allam) for global distribution. This is a problem for Henk, who thought he had rights to distribute the game for Nintendo. How can he possibly make his millions with British billionaires standing in his way? (To keep us entertained through this exposition deluge, director Jon S. Baird occasionally renders the visuals in 8-bit pixelization. It’s a fun choice.)
If you were at all confused reading the previous paragraph, don’t worry: Tetris doesn’t particularly care if you understand the specifics of its business transactions, so long as you’re along for the ride. Baird, the Scottish director behind 2013’s Filth, does a great job zipping you from Tokyo to London to Seattle (woo!) to Moscow with a carefree attitude that builds upon Noah Pink’s lively screenplay. Speaking of Mr. Pink, you have to marvel at the bravery that he must have had when pitching this film. Imagine walking into a boardroom filled with Apple executives with a movie idea about licensing and distribution.
Most of the film’s action takes place in Moscow, where Henk, Robert Stein, and Kevin Maxwell (Robert Maxwell’s son, played by Anthony Boyle) engage in a bidding war for the game’s licensing. The business deals themselves are pleasantly thrilling, with villainous Soviet politicians trying to scam away the best deal before their country’s inevitable end. The notion that these Russians were somehow fully aware of their country being on the brink of collapse is of a piece with the film’s ludicrous historical revisionism, yet it is a revisionism that never fails to make me smile. The film’s triumphalist history recounts the Cold War as a struggle that the United States was always destined to win because we have free-market believers like Henk Rogers on our side. (The Soviets, for their part, are a bunch of dreary, paranoid bureaucrats.) His dream of licensing Tetris to the world is the ultimate capitalist fantasia, filtered wonderfully through Egerton’s nice-guy appeal. You believe in him because he believes in him.
Along the way, Henk strikes up a friendship with Alexey, the game’s original designer, and the two develop a bromance worthy of a Nora Ephron rom-com. In one perfectly saccharine scene, Alexey takes Henk out to a Russian discotheque, where the 80s synth-rock classic “The Final Countdown” begins playing serendipitously from on high. Egerton barges onto the dance floor with confidence and joy, amazed at the fact that these Russians know all the lyrics to the Swedish banger. “Good ideas have no borders,” responds Alexey, in the most pleasantly theme-screaming dialogue you could possibly think of. It’s a ham-fisted moment completely lacking in subtlety—and I loved it. If Ted Lasso has taught us anything, it’s that a bit of direct-to-camera messaging can sometimes be just what the doctor ordered.
Tetris is a feel-good film in the best possible sense. It is a Hollywood biopic that knows how ridiculous the project really is, a fact that is never more clear than in the film’s final car-chase sequence in which Henk, Alexey, and the Nintendo of America CEO escape from Moscow while being pursued by evil KGB spies. Every time that the cars swerve into a wall or hit another vehicle, they take on pixelized visuals, sputtering and digitizing in 8-bit chaos. It’s entirely ridiculous, and that’s entirely the point. We aren’t here for facts and historicity—we’re here for rip-roaring Hollywood entertainment. Tetris delivers in spades.