Tetris 2023: The Fascinating Tale of the world’s most popular game.

INTRODUCTION.

Tetris 2023 is a biographical drama and comedy thriller directed by Jon S. Baird. Tetris, written by Noah Pink, stars Taron Egerton, Nikita Efremov, Sofia Lebedeva, Anthony Boyle, Toby Jones, and Roger Allam.

Before the movie’s release, Henk Rogers mentioned in an interview that he and Alexey Pajitnov had reviewed the script and provided some suggestions. However, Rogers acknowledged that the writing was a Hollywood production and not historically accurate, so many events depicted in the movie did not occur in reality. Nevertheless, some incidents shown in the film did happen. 

Rogers highlighted the producers’ goal of expressing the sad and ominous atmosphere that he experienced while negotiating for the rights to Tetris in the Soviet Union. He also mentioned that the producers were receptive to the modifications to ensure authenticity. However, when it came to creative elements like the car chase, the producers were given complete control, and no alterations were permitted.

Tetris distributed by Apple TV+ was released on the 31st of March, 2023. It runs for about 2 hours. English and Russian are languages spoken.

SYNOPSIS.

The grand narrative of “Tetris” chronicles the remarkable journey of one of the world’s most beloved video games, from its origins to its worldwide success. Taron Egerton portrays Henk Rogers, who stumbles upon TETRIS in 1988 and takes a massive risk by venturing to the Soviet Union, where he teams up with inventor Alexey Pazhitnov (Nikita Efremov) to introduce the game to the masses.

This true story is a Cold War-era thriller that leaves viewers on the edge of their seats, with heart-pumping action, treacherous foes, and unlikely champions racing towards a thrilling conclusion.

TETRIS OFFICIAL MOVIE TRAILER

TETRIS FILM REVIEW.

Hank Roger is trying to get people to play hisnewly released game GO which he claims is just like chess, though more arduous, and is “Asia’s favorite game.” GO wasn’t a success, that even Hank struggled to keep his salesgirl interested. His salesgirl Tracy (Mara Huf) was playing another game Tetris when she was supposed to get people to buy GO.

Roger catches her in the act and due to her interest in the game; Roger is convinced that Tetris is worth buying. Roger uses the money he owes his Bank for his failed video game GO to purchase the licensing rights to Tetris, which he calls “the perfect game.” He tells his Bank, represented by Eddie (Rick Yune), “Tetris is not only addictive, but it also stays with you.” He goes further by saying, “It’s poetry. Art and Maths both working in magical synchroneity.”

Tetris is a game developed by Alexey Pajitnov (Nikita Efremov) in Russia, the Soviet Union; he’d need an entrepreneur to go there and monetize the game. This entrepreneur is Robert Stein (Toby Jones).

Robert went to Russia, as usual, to buy games cheaply and sell them to the West. When Tetris catches his attention, and he decides to license the Worldwide personal computer rights to Tetris for 10,000 dollars. This deal goes well for him.

Roger intended to sell the game to Nintendo, but when a proposal of 500,000 was proposed by Hiroshi Yamauchi (Togo Igawa), the CEO of Nintendo, Roger declined. He says he has a “bigger vision” for the game.

Knowing that Nintendo publishes its game in-house, Roger still wants to become a partner. Hamaruchi tells him he’ll need to produce 200,000 cartridges, but Roger needs money for that, so he sees Eddie for a loan of 3 million.

For Eddie to give Roger that amount of money, he had to up Roger’s interest rate and use his house for collateral.

Soon after commencing production, Rogers gets a phone call from Kevin (Kevin (Anthony Boyle) is the son of a billionaire media tycoon who also want to by the game’s licencing rights), who tells him that Sega has already been promised the arcade rights. Rogers then returns to Yamauchi and asks for his share of the earnings in advance. However, instead of fulfilling his request, Yamauchi sends him to the headquarters of Nintendo of America in Seattle where he is shown the upcoming handheld gaming device, the Game Boy, which is intended to be launched alongside Super Mario Land.

Rogers travels to London to meet with the Maxwells (Kevin and his dad) for the handheld rights, but they inform him that Stein has retained all the worldwide licensing rights. Despite trying to buy the rights for the handheld, Rogers’ attempts are unsuccessful, and he is turned down.

The Maxwells instruct Stein to acquire the handheld rights.

Kevin confronts his father about a large sum of money missing from the employees’ retirement fund, but father pushes this aside. Rogers comes across Stein outside and proposes to buy the global handheld rights for $25,000, which Stein agrees to. However, some men inform Rogers that Stein has already promised the handheld rights to Atari for $100,000. Upon learning about this, Kevin and Rogers decide to go to Moscow to try and acquire the rights themselves, even though Stein assures them that he will obtain them.

Now the battle starts. Who will acquire these rights first? Will both of them get played?

Tetris is a fun drama film to watch. The acting is excellent, and the character’s clothing is great though it looks hilarious especially on Mr. Rogers. Rogers is dressed up and given  a mustache probably to make it him seem like he’s from way back. This mustache adds humor to his role as I tend to laugh whenever I look at his face.

I am pleased with every character’s performance as they played their roles to the best of their ability with proper display of emotions.

Tetris is almost like THE GENTLEMEN, with the storytelling and voiceovers. Suppose you know what I mean. It is comedic to an extent as it displays emotions in funny ways and the sounds and scores used. For example, the sound used when Roger walks is the same as when Mario from Super Mario jumps.

This movie is fast-paced and in no way simple, yet it makes each scene look as simple as possible. Because of its fast pace, you might need to watch it again to catch up on some missed details.

I like how they pixelized some things like cars, characters, etc. Makes you feel like you’re in a game while watching a movie. Impressive stuff.

The songs used are also excellent.

DID YOU KNOW?

According to IMDB, At the beginning of the film, Henk mentions that he sees Tetris pieces in his dreams even when he is sleeping. This occurrence is known as the Tetris Effect, a genuine phenomenon first introduced by journalist Jeffrey Goldsmith in 1994. It refers to the experience of having persistent thoughts, perceptions, or dreams related to something one has focused on for an extended period.

CONCLUSION.

At first thought, this was a bad movie until I watched it. I loved it. I promise you must be something other than a Tetris video games lover to enjoy this film. Give Tetris a try.

Tetris is Rated R for language.

All images used are from TETRIS movie.

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