Tetris Review: Taron Egerton's Preposterous Apple TV+ Movie Is a Puzzle

The 2013 Mark Wahlberg-Dwayne Johnson film Pain & Gain opens with the familiar note that it is based on an actual event. When the antics get ramped up toward the end past the point of believability, the movie pauses to remind us what we're seeing is "still based on a true story." It's a nice touch.

There's none of that in Tetris, a preposterous geopolitical-drama-comedy debuting on Apple TV+ on March 31. I am absolutely ready for a movie that wants to make the amusing "if you think about it" case that the addictive titular video game was an important tool in the eventual downfall of Soviet communism. I am even ready to support a moment wherein Mikhail Gorbachev's goons race away from a parade of tanks and missiles to bark "stop them!" into their walkie-talkies, hoping to catch some nerdy computer programmers. But if you are going to make those choices, you need to make it clear if we in the audience are supposed to think it's a joke or not. 

The central problem is that Tetris, directed by Jon S. Baird, written by Noah Pink, and produced by Matthew Vaughn (among others), has no clue just what in the heck kind of movie it wants to be. Is this a gripping period drama about a totalitarian government, or is this a goofy farce featuring a car chase where vehicles bust out into 8-bit visions of themselves? To put it in terms of the game, it's desperately trying as many moves as it can, hoping for the arrival of a long thin piece that can slide into place and save the day. And you know how that strategy goes.

2.0

Tetris

at Apple TV+

Like

• Egerton makes for a sympathetic lead
• It'll make you want to play Tetris

Dislike

• The tone is all over the place
• It takes a lot of liberties with history
• Business deals aren't very entertaining

Taron Egerton is sympathetic enough as Henk Rogers, a Dutch-born American video game developer based out of Japan in the 1980s. At an expo he catches a glimpse of Tetris, a new game conquering the Soviet Union, and he knows it holds his future. He bets his own livelihood on brokering a deal with stone-faced communist bureaucrats to bring the game to the West before a competing group of uncaring British Tory fat cats and their Mitteleuropean advance man can. 

What follows is perhaps the most boring of all sub-genres: deal memo cinema. I'm sure there are some people out there who only liked Mad Men for its boardroom negotiations with Utz and Kodak rather than the existential conflicts of its leads. But surely that's the minority. Tetris, with razor-thin characters, is a movie with absolutely no stakes. Will our hero be able to negotiate for handheld rights to the game or be stuck with only console rights? How long should we spend arguing about what determines if something is a "computer" game or not? (The makers of Tetris think the answer is: a lot of time!) I know this is set in the late 1980s and there's been a great deal of price inflation, but it's hilarious when you see all these investors are losing their minds for contracts worth (say it like Austin Powers) "one million dollars."

What's most shocking is just how much of this movie is spent in the offices of a Soviet computer company (run by the KGB? It's vague) as bullet points of a potential deal are ironed out. I mean, this would be riveting if we were getting a cut ourselves, but eventually you just have to shout, "Who cares?!?" 

Naturally, Henk forms a bond with the actual salt-of-the-earth game creator, Alexey Pajitnov (Nikita Efremov), and this is meant, in some way, to represent how individuals from two different worlds can find common ground. But even this hackneyed trope is underdeveloped. We just watch them make adjustments to a video game, and in an unrealistically abridged amount of time. 

That I can find no corroborating evidence online that the real Henk Rodgers was attacked by Russian operatives or had a sexy double agent sent after him like he was 007 is more annoying to me here than it is with most films for some reason. (And Pajitnov had a partner, Vladimir Pokhilko, with whom he emigrated to the West, but good luck finding him in this movie.) 

I can understand the need to try to tell a fun story, but don't lie and call it true. Tetris would have you believe that when visitors from Nintendo arrived in Moscow, a dedicated telephone would ring in a shady office of the secret service, a man would pick up, glower, and say, "They're back." Oh, if only these suits shouted back, "It's a-me!"

I'll say one positive thing. For the last few days — and, indeed, as I was writing this review — I've found myself distracted by an old friend. You can go to tetris.com/play-tetris and enjoy a free game just like you remember it (with a slightly updated theme song) right now if you want to waste some time. 

Premieres: Friday, March 31 on Apple TV+
Who's in it: Taron Egerton, Toby Jones, Nikita Efremov
Who's behind it: Jon S. Baird (director), Noah Pink (screenwriter)
For fans of: Tetris, business deals, the 1980s