A good rule of thumb for movies about video games is that the movie should be at least as interesting as the game on which it’s based. Apple’s Tetris film does an admirable job reminding viewers of the addictive attraction of the 1980s Game Boy classic, which mesmerized millions. In fact, it’s so successful, that I found myself constantly reaching for my phone, trying to sneak in a level or two while the film meandered from cliché to cliché.
Of course, Jon Baird’s film is not an adaptation of the game of “Tetris;” I’m not even clear how that would work (please, Hollywood, don’t try). It’s instead the story of real-life businessman Henk Rogers (Taron Egerton) and his quest to bring the game to Nintendo Game Boys and arcade cabinets worldwide in the mid-1980s. The actual machinations to get “Tetris” from the Soviet Union to the free world is a genuinely interesting one. It’s often been compared to a gripping, exciting Hollywood spy thriller. And now it is – so long as you substitute “gripping” and “exciting” for “typical” and “fine, I guess.”
Rather than center its story on Alexey Pajitnov (Nikita Efremov), the Soviet programmer who designed “Tetris” and turned it into a sensation in his homeland, the film focuses on Rogers, an American expat living in Japan who’s in debt to his bank after his latest attempt to sell a video game falls flat. While at an electronics convention, he discovers someone selling the rights to a game where players try to stack blocks into rows. Henk immediately smells a hit, tracks down the mysterious Hungarian businessman (Toby Jones) who claims to have wrested the rights from the Soviets, and mortgages his house to convince Nintendo that he can make them millions. Of course, wrangling the rights isn’t so easy, and takes Henk to Moscow, where he’s caught in the middle of duplicitous doings and political theater, some of which actually happened (the constant back-and-forth negotiations between the Russians and three separate entities at once) and much of which most likely didn’t (the climactic car chase through the streets of Moscow).
Noah Pink’s script is at its best when it focuses on the very specific absurdities of the situation; a long sequence where Russian businessmen repeatedly walk in and out of negotiations is very funny, and Toby Jones’ performance as the slimy businessman is fun to watch. But at two hours, the film quickly becomes repetitive, consistently dragging Henk back to Moscow and the same hotel suites and conference rooms, over and over.
The elements of a Coen-esque satire are just below the bones of the real story, but Baird largely plays it straight, aside from randomly inserting 8-bit graphics into some sequences. There’s a world in which this movie plays as sly comedy – “all this for a video game?” – or as a commentary on a Western businessman so over his head that he becomes a character in a spy thriller. Were Henk not presented as so much of a genuine American hero, this could be presented as the grandiose stories of a blowhard executive.
Instead, Baird’s film is a down-the-middle, generic spy thriller, but without anything resembling actual stakes. When James Bond or Jack Ryan are running from the KGB, the fate of the world is at risk; here, all the tension hangs on whether it will be Nintendo or Atari that makes billions. There are ways this story could work – either amp up the tension to ridiculous levels or play the story as sly parody, commenting on the lengths governments and businesses will go to to make a buck. The film makes some ham-fisted references to the war between capitalism and communism but never seems interested in exploring them until the end, when some archival news footage suggests that maybe “Tetris” brought down the USSR. The film plays it too generically to be interesting and, truthfully, there’s more suspense and anxiety when a good game of “Tetris” hits level 10 on my phone.
The film is competently shot, if visually uninteresting (the 8-bit graphics tossed in from time to time grow weary by the time the film hits its big action sequence). Baird occasionally finds some interesting visual commentary on Nintendo itself, such as the heroic reveal of the Game Boy system, but never really explores the world-dominating business tactics of the video game giant, nor generates much tension from the competing buyers. There is some interesting material about Pajitnov’s creation of the game and his inability to profit from it under Soviet rule, and the film’s best scenes involve the burgeoning friendship between Alexey and Henk. Again, there’s a solid drama under the surface, but the film is too eager to keep ladling on the spy elements done better elsewhere.
Taron Egerton in “Tetris.” © Apple Original Films.
Egerton is very good; he’s an actor quietly but consistently making right choices. He plays Henk as the last honest businessman in the Western world, and is skilled at keeping Henk’s facade cool while still showing the nerves fraying beneath the surface. It’s solid work, even in the cliched scenes that suggest Henk could stand to be a better father. But the character is such a good man that there’s also very little to hang on to. He doesn’t seem seduced by capitalism run amok (again, the tension between steroidal capitalism and stringent communism could have made a more entertaining film) and there’s never much suggestion that he wants to do more than pay off his bills. Which is a laudable value but fairly boring filmmaking.
Tetris is made for Apple TV+ and, like many straight-to-streaming movies, it feels like a piece of content that never needs to be good but rather just needs to be. It doesn’t hold the attention for long, but it does pique interest enough to keep viewers subscribed for another month. Like the “Tetris” Game Boy cartridge, it’s just selling something bigger than itself anyway.
