Tetris
Published May 7, 2023
Film info
- Title Tetris
- Director Jon S. Baird
- Year 2023
- Run time 1hr 58m
- Genres History, Drama, Thriller
- Tagline The game you couldn't put down. The story you couldn't make up.
In 1988, American video game salesman Henk Rogers discovers the video game Tetris. When he sets out to bring the game to the world, he enters a dangerous web of lies and corruption behind the Iron Curtain.
Live blog
| Time | Comment |
|---|---|
| 1:28 | “It’s like chess, except infinitely harder.” |
| 2:50 | Already I want to play Tetris. |
| 7:37 | I really feel like people just added ‘soft’ to any word in the 80s. |
| 12:35 | The wife would be there if she was all in. |
| 15:33 | The trouble with Russian conversations is you have to read between all the lines and I’m useless at that. |
| 21:09 | 160 x 144 pixels. Ooof. |
| 26:01 | “…rearrange the balance sheets.” Oh no! |
| 34:55 | “I think we should vanish.” Or they’ll make you. |
| 45:05 | That awkward moment when the person reveals they speak English the whole time. |
| 47:33 | “We will gallantly attack that in the morrow.” |
| 56:22 | This is one of the nerdiest movies I’ve ever seen. Brilliant. |
| 59:32 | “Good ideas have no borders.” |
| 1:09:06 | Haha, I’m going to start leaving rooms at key moments too. |
| 1:16:26 | So much of this business is being done by fax. |
| 1:32:46 | You can’t just private jet into Moscow, surely? |
| 1:39:03 | Accounting quirk! Jeez louise. |
| 1:41:17 | Saving the day in a shitty orange Lada is LIFE. |
Thoughts
There are two parts of this film to review. Firstly, the concept. Who went into the writers room and said “turns out, Tetris basically brought down the Soviet Union, the Maxwell media empire, and revolutionised the gaming industry… and we can make a film about it with genuine programming and arguing about contracts and some Russian conspiracies.”
It sounds bonkers, but that’s exactly what it was. Incredible. An amazing story, really well told. Which is the second part of the review, I really liked the way some quite complicated to-ing and fro-ing was told. The 8-bit graphics were really well done, and I liked how they sometimes interfered with some of the action scenes as well. The way the story was structured was great and made it easy to follow. And once again, Taran Egerton was fantastic.
Brilliant.
Rating: 5 / 5