Tetris (Movie Review)
The Story You Couldn't Make Up (Partially)
I was pretty pumped for Tetris the moment I saw the trailer. I have always said that Tetris has a backstory that Hollywood could make a great movie with. So with that being said, did it deliver as I’ve always said it could? The short answer is Yes! But, it had to bend the truth a little to do so.
The movie focuses on Henk Rogers and a cast of real-life characters around the late 80s and the beginning of the modern video game industry. Rogers is negotiating with the Soviet Union to get the rights to Tetris, a popular game created by Alexey Pajitnov. Rogers makes a deal with video game powerhouse Nintendo do help secure Tetris as a packaged combo with their upcoming Game Boy handheld system. But, the Soviet Union and the Robert Maxwell lead Mirrorsoft are doing everything to stop him.
As a gamer, the aspects of the film that work best is seeing some early gaming icons in the screen for the first time. And what’s even better is that the actors nail them. Togo Igawa embodies the grandfatherly, yet intimidating nature of Nintendo President Hiroshi Yamauchi. I even got a kick out of Yamauchi cracking up, almost menacingly, when Rogers was worried he didn’t secure arcade rights (because Yamauchi knew arcade gaming wasn’t the future). Ben Miles does a great job nailing Howard Lincoln, a major force in the American division of the company who was known for being a fair but tough as nails businessman. The research is well done and notes how Sega wasn’t a major player yet, but Nintendo is still in the stage to hate Atari and see them as a threat.
I will say, I do wish that we did see more icons of the time. Its almost criminal that Shigeru Miyamoto and Gunpei Yokoi (the creator of Game Boy) don’t show up. And while they do have Minoru Arakawa, the first Nintendo of America President, I do wish he had more of a presence. Arakawa has a really interesting background himself as he did marry Yamauchi’s daughter and famously took a risk launching the NES in the United States, following the 1983 North American video game crash. But I think what this movie did show, is that the launch of Nintendo as a video game company could be told in a film. And actually, a lot of behind the scenes stories in gaming can be told in film.
The movie itself is really fun. It has a tone that embraces the serious aspects of what’s going on, but mixed with a dark comedy around the more fun parts. Taron Egerton and Nikita Efremov do a great job as the main protagonists. However, I will point out the movie does get pretty serious in tone in the last third, which can throw you off. Though it is fun, as both someone who knows gaming history and a lot of real world history, to see the clashing of the Soviets, Rogers, Alexey, the Maxwells (who by the way are Ghislaine Maxwell’s family), Gorbachev, and Nintendo pioneers.
Now, lets address the elephant in the room. A good chunk of this movie isn’t true. Rogers did have a hell of a time getting the rights to Tetris. He did have to go up against people like Robert Maxwell, the Soviets, and companies like Atari. But, he didn’t find himself in a spy thriller or get chased by the KGB (though they did race down the street in Alexey’s car to get to the airport). But with a lot of these stories, they do say “Based” on a true story, not that everything is real, so I’m not flipping a table upside down because of it.
I personally really enjoyed this film. It had a good mix of dark comedy, likeable characters, and its of course part of video game history, enough of it real for me to approve. I just hope this begins a new trend of Hollywood looking at other interesting stories around the video game industry to adapt.
FINAL SCORE - 4.5 / 5