Tetris (2023)

April 1, 2023 12:37 PM

The story of how one of the world's most popular video games found its way to players around the globe. Businessman Henk Rogers and Tetris inventor Alexey Pajitnov join forces in the USSR, risking it all to bring Tetris to the masses.

Now playing on Apple TV+, Trailer on YouTube

NYT: Like its namesake, this film is clever, crafty and shockingly entertaining.
CNN: ‘Tetris’ plays like a Cold War thriller built around the game’s origins
Ars Technica: Apple TV’s Tetris biopic loses the true plot amid its ‘80s movie tropes

posted by Frayed Knot (14 comments total)

I liked it! And the more I read about what actually happened, the more it seems like the movie really did capture the essence of bringing Tetris to the West. A crazy-addictive game, the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the undoing of Robert Maxwell's empire all collide at once to make a story where truth really is weirder than fiction.
posted by Frayed Knot at 12:43 PM on April 1, 2023 [2 favorites]

It was fun, but I kept kind of expecting it was going to include more of the Tengen side of the story, and that just sort of came and went in the 3rd act.
posted by Kyol at 7:13 PM on April 1, 2023

That was ridiculous, but I enjoyed it.
posted by The corpse in the library at 8:16 PM on April 1, 2023

I am definitely buying the soundtrack when it’s available. I think I counted four different versions of Korebeniki in the movie?
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 9:17 PM on April 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

Supposedly most of the events depicted actually happened except for the thrilling chase at the end and Belnikov's beating (he was merely questioned and threatened). And supposedly Robert's Maxwell's bribery and other crimes were worse than what the film showed.

In the final scene I could swear I could hear the Pet Shop Boys trying to break through Korebeniki, and I thought "man, closing this out with Opportunities would just be perfect," and then to my delight the song kicked in mixed together with Korebeniki. Absolutely incredible.
posted by Servo5678 at 10:29 PM on April 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

To digress a little bit, I was semi-surprised that the Ozma cover of "Korebeiniki" didn't make it into this movie, especially since it got good use in an earlier movie also produced by Matthew Vaughn.
posted by The Pluto Gangsta at 4:58 AM on April 2, 2023

That Ars Technica reviewer seemed to miss the point of the movie. It wasn't supposed to be historical it was trying to be really fun. I thought it did a good job at that.

If there were one thing that I'd change it would have been the car chase at the end. The boxy soviet-era car designs already brought Tetris game play to mind. They didn't need to suddenly 8 bit animate the alley for me to get it. That seemed like they didn't trust me to get it. I wouldn't have done that instead I would have leaned into using the vehicles that were really reminiscent of the four Tetris shapes.
posted by Stanczyk at 8:58 AM on April 2, 2023

BTW, they don't bring it up but Maxwell also had a daughter, Ghislaine, who he first introduced to his good friend, Jeffrey Epstein. Maxwell would also die in the water off his boat named for Ghislaine. And if that's not enough reason to hate him, he's also the guy who commercialized the publishing of science scholarship and it was through that exploitation of libraries he made his initial fortune. The list of reasons to hate that guy is only rivaled by Rupert Murdoch.
posted by Stanczyk at 9:11 AM on April 2, 2023 [10 favorites]

Overall I think I would rate this Good Bad Movie with a kind of a boring bit in the middle. The movie was really horny for its pixel art conceit, and it got into self-parody territory around the third time they did that pixel art effect for an establishing shot of ELORG. Big Pixel has gotten to the highest echelons of the movie staff.

I must confess to having done a bit of World War II Dad shouting at the movie, due to being cursed with any awareness of/familiarity at all with the people and technologies involved. Like in the scene with Rogers and Yamauchi, with Rogers making his extremely contrived plea using a bunch of misguided Nintendo game analogies ("that's why Link has Zelda" [footage of two Links from a game released like 15 years later]), I started laughing at the realization that if this actually happened, and Yamauchi could somehow understand what Rogers was saying, he still wouldn't be able to understand what Rogers was saying, because he famously never played video games at all.

I did find it extremely funny that in this movie about a specific video game, they managed to get literally every single video game sound effect wrong except for one at the very end. Commitment to the cruft. I also keep thinking about the Game Boy scene where Rogers goes to ask the guys what the screen resolution is, but instead says: "How many pixels does it have?" I like to imagine he spent the next few minutes silently berating himself in his head for that brain fart of a phrasing. Also: rt this scene to give a programmer you know a stroke

Overall, I paid the right amount to see the movie, and it was at least reasonably entertaining throughout, regardless of whether it was in the way that was intended at any given point. It's a very "weekend afternoon movie that happens to be on TV" sort of movie overall. Didn't hate it, but probably won't watch it again. That's not so bad, in the grand scheme of things. It starts out exactly like a SNL parody thing, and then it ends with a mashup of Korobeiniki and Pet Shop Boys. Could do a lot worse, really.
posted by DoctorFedora at 6:17 PM on April 2, 2023 [1 favorite]

This movie was exactly what I wanted it to be, although as with most movies, it could have stood being 15-20 minutes shorter (although since I watched it in two sessions, I'm not sure exactly where I'd make those cuts).

Just the right amount of scenery-chewing unseriousness and a charismatic lead whose doe-eyed enthusiasm really sold it for me.
posted by uncleozzy at 6:21 AM on April 3, 2023

It was an entertaining evening watching a version of a well told history. As a game developer of several decades now, I winced at parts, and was delighted by others. Knowing the fates of many the participants going in, did not distract from an entertaining and occasionally thrilling take.
posted by inpHilltr8r at 9:20 AM on April 3, 2023

BTW, they don't bring it up but Maxwell also had a daughter, Ghislaine, who he first introduced to his good friend, Jeffrey Epstein. Maxwell would also die in the water off his boat named for Ghislaine. And if that's not enough reason to hate him, he's also the guy who commercialized the publishing of science scholarship and it was through that exploitation of libraries he made his initial fortune. The list of reasons to hate that guy is only rivaled by Rupert Murdoch.
posted by Stanczyk at 9:11 AM on April 2 [4 favorites +] [!]

!!!
posted by latkes at 6:46 PM on April 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

This movie was absolutely funded in part by the CIA.

I will not be taking questions.
posted by absalom at 9:51 PM on April 18, 2023

This was delightful. Yeah, the last third could have been shortened. Once Henk gets the contract to Nintendo, the drama over who get the rights is mostly over. It's just a matter of how badly the Maxwells lose and how much trouble Alexey is in.
posted by riruro at 9:02 PM on May 1, 2023