Apple TV+ ‘Tetris’ explores the game’s dramatic back story
“Tetris” tells the unbelievable story of how one of the world’s most popular video games found its way to avid players around the globe. Henk Rogers (Taron Egerton) discovers TETRIS in 1988, and then risks everything by traveling to the Soviet Union, where he joins forces with inventor Alexey Pajitnov (Nikita Efremov) to bring the game to the masses. Based on a true story, “Tetris” is a Cold War–era thriller on steroids, with double-crossing villains, unlikely heroes and a nail-biting race to the finish.
Who knew that Tetris, that oddly addictive puzzle game from the 1980s, had such a dramatic back story?
A new movie of the same name, out Friday on Apple TV+, takes viewers behind the scenes in the battle over distribution rights to the game. Part business biopic, part Cold War spy thriller, the nearly two-hour film is almost certainly the best ever made about international copyright negotiations…
By the end, the film devolves into fistfights and car chases worthy of Argo or worse, The Fast and the Furious series.
Apple held the movie’s premiere at the South by Southwest festival in Austin on March 15. There was also a screening at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco last week, as the tech giant tries to win over that influential and likely sympathetic audience. So far so good, Tetris has a 92% approval rating from audiences on Rotten Tomatoes.
Via: Bloomberg News
