‘Tetris’ Review: Taron Egerton in a Compelling Video Game Origin Story That Could Have Been More – Hollywood Reporter

Someplace alongside the way in which in Jon S. Baird’s fleet and compelling fictionalized take a look at the invention of Tetris, you neglect that you simply’re watching a movie a couple of online game. Zippy automobile chases, farcical negotiation scenes and a tour of Eighties-era convention rooms world wide make Tetris, which premiered at SXSW and airs on Apple TV+ on the finish of March, greater than an odd origin story. Baird (Stan & Ollie) makes use of the convoluted licensing battle across the recreation to border a sturdy and infrequently humorous drama about capitalism, mental property and the specter of the Soviet Union’s dissolution. Tetris’ willingness to deal with these themes certainly makes it extra absorbing than your common streamer fare, nevertheless it additionally makes you would like the movie went farther in exploring its ambivalence in regards to the relationship between inventive expression and greed.

The story begins in ’80s Las Vegas, the place Henk Rogers (Taron Egerton), a Dutch nationwide raised in New York and dwelling in Japan, is attempting to promote his recreation, Go, at a conference. His efforts to corral passersby are, to place it bluntly, unsuccessful. Not solely is Henk competing with town and its promise of slot-machine riches, however he’s stationed subsequent to a much more gripping recreation: Tetris. The falling tetriminoes, which should be turned and flipped to create an entire line, have even stolen his salesgirl, who floated to the following station and by no means returned.

Like every good businessman, Henk nosily investigates the competitors. What he finds just some toes away is an addictive puzzle recreation, an enthralling composition of multicolored blocks. He impulsively buys the pc and arcade rights for Japan (a transfer he clumsily rationalizes to his impatient financial institution supervisor, performed by Rick Yune).

Everybody who encounters Tetris seems like Henk. The sport, invented by Russian pc engineer and recreation designer Alexey Pajitnov (portrayed by Nikita Efremov) in 1984, was in contrast to something in the marketplace on the time. The straightforward aesthetic and simple aim (to create an entire row, which then disappears) drew gamers in. The temporary thrill of incremental problem-solving saved them hooked.

Within the 2004 documentary Tetris: From Russia with Love, Pajitnov and a gallery of speaking heads attribute the sport’s widespread attraction to the way it tapped right into a extra inventive a part of the human psyche. Tetris impressed you to construct one thing; it was, in Pajitnov’s phrases within the doc, imbued with the “spirit of developing.”

I think timing additionally performed a big half within the recreation’s early success. Tetris breached the digital partitions of the Iron Curtain because the Soviet Union was getting ready to collapse. The sport gained notoriety inside Russia after which the remainder of the Soviet nations earlier than its license was acquired by Robert Stein (performed by Toby Jones), a shrewd businessman who created a market out of shoddy license acquisitions. It linked, nevertheless tenuously, individuals world wide to a spot they’d been taught to concern. 

Tetris effectively covers this historical past in its opening moments by way of Henk’s voiceover narration and expository gross sales pitch to his financial institution supervisor. However Baird is extra within the weird occasions that subsequently made the sport a runaway success internationally and finally secured a credit score for its creator. By truncating the early a part of the sport’s origin story, the movie pushes attention-grabbing questions on its underground distribution (Pajitnov copied it for mates, who copied it for different mates, and so forth.) to the margins.

Baird’s method is just like David Fincher’s in The Social Community, one other movie that makes use of a protracted authorized battle to border inquiries about greed and capitalism. Like the sooner film, Tetris, with its dour visible palette, menacing rating and jittery digital camera angles, performs like a thriller. However Baird provides thrives that save the movie from cynicism, most notably the 16-bit animation interludes introducing characters as gamers and chapters as ranges and utilizing Europe’s “The Ultimate Countdown” as a musical motif.

Noah Pink’s screenplay provides us stable sufficient foundations to grasp the motives of every character, however not sufficient to forestall them from often feeling like avatars. Egerton’s Henk, performed with an earnest goofiness, turns into a logo for integrity and honesty. Greater than the license for distribution, he needs Efremov’s Alexey, whom he tries to develop a friendship with, to get credit score and royalties. The opposite businessmen, like Robert (Jones) and the billionaire Maxwells (Roger Allam performs shady patriarch Robert and Anthony Boyle is his thin-skinned son, Kevin), couldn’t care much less in regards to the inventor.

When Henk lands in Russia, he discovers a system unsympathetic to his Western beliefs, and much more vultures. There’s Nikolai Belikov (Oleg Stefan), the supervisor of Alexey’s firm, whose motivations boil right down to getting the perfect deal for the Soviet Union, or so he says. And corrupt KGB officer Valentin Trifonov (Igor Grabuzov) needs to safe a private security internet earlier than the present regime topples. Because the cadre of businessmen convene in Russia (unbeknownst to one another), the stakes get increased and the ridiculousness of their conditions extra obvious, making for an entertaining sequence of occasions. Determined makes an attempt to outbid one another land every of them in wild situations because the corrosive combine of cash and energy within the collapsing Soviet Union turns into clearer.

As Tetris hurtles towards its closing act, the movie raises extra questions on mental property, capital and who loses when greed is prioritized above all else. There’s additionally an try to punch up the thread about Henk and Alexey’s friendship — the 2 have a heart-to-heart dinner and exit dancing — although that doesn’t land as gracefully because the licensing storyline, with its extra natural-feeling twists and turns.

Tucked into the movie’s triumphant ending are traces of traces of a extra provocative thesis in regards to the geopolitical panorama into which Tetris was born. Who had been the actual winners and losers of this fraught licensing battle unfolding towards the backdrop of a altering world order? With Pet Store Boys’ “Alternatives” — a music steeped in irony — taking part in over the closing credit, I longed for a movie that leaned into complexity as a lot as sheer enjoyability.