Tetris movie review: Taron Egerton is terrific in Apple’s slick but sloppy entertainer about the world’s best-selling video game

There’s a farcical element to this sequence, in which grave-looking Russians interrogate the comically animated American who wants to make money for a Japanese corporation. But when it’s at its best, the film’s back-room wheeling and dealing isn’t dissimilar to what you’d remember from Bridge of Spies, that terrific espionage film in which Tom Hanks played an American attorney tasked by his country to facilitate a barter deal between two prisoners of war. Along the way, he formed a bond with a Russian spy played by Mark Rylance. In Tetris, a similar relationship blossoms between Henk and a local man named Alexey; the computer engineer who designed the game during off hours from his drab government job. Constantly under surveillance, Alexey begrudgingly agrees to humour Henk in Moscow, immediately attracting the attention of sinister-looking KGB agents, but in the process discovering his own agency.

Initially, he thinks of Henk as the personification of what he, as a communist, has been taught to hate. If you think about it, Henk’s only motivation is money, and while the film is in no way a criticism of capitalism — it literally foregrounds the commerce over art by presenting this story from Henk’s perspective and not Alexey’s — it certainly isn’t suggesting that the communist way of life, particularly in Soviet era Russia, was in any way ideal. In fact, the Russia portions are almost comically drab, with entire scenes set inside Brutalist buildings, or on icy grey streets. The briefest of respites comes when Alexey takes Henk to an underground party once, and later, in a fun car chase that Baird jazzes up with colourful bursts of CGI Tetris bricks.

In fact, several establishing shots are designed to mimic the 8-bit animation style of the video game, and Lorne Balfe’s background score harks back to the synth-heavy 80s. Tetris isn’t a video game film; it’s a film about video games. But in certain moments, such as the chase, it doesn’t shy away from embracing the candy-coloured aesthetic that fans of arcade-era video games would appreciate.

The challenge that films like this usually struggle with is to maintain a grip on the audience in spite of their thinly written characters. After all, how does one continue to root for someone who is clearly in it for themselves? Tetris attempts to wiggle its way around this problem by combining Henk’s personal greed with regular reminders that he’s also a family man, which means that we get a handful of scenes involving his young children and wife. Wisely, the movie pivots to Alexey in the last third, perhaps recognising that it can’t expect the audience to remain invested in Henk’s journey when he’s sharing the screen with a bigger underdog.

But by then, the film has gotten too tangled up in a web of its own plotting to care about the characters, or to expect us to. This is a shame, because the performances, especially by Taron Egerton (Henk) and Nikita Yefremov (Alexey), are vulnerable and engaging. Egerton, the young star who has displayed such a staggering range in his projects, is particularly good here. He somehow never lets you forget that the film’s dramatic anchor is Henk’s wobbly devotion to family, even though the scenes in which he pitches Tetris to potential investors are comic gold. Egerton has been compared to Hugh Jackman in the past, being the total showman that he is, but here, he’s like a young Leonardo DiCaprio.

But despite the strong movie star performance, a propulsive soundtrack of pop covers, and plenty of visual flair, Tetris doesn’t entirely come together at the end. Perhaps it’s because the film’s second half is never able to sustain the energy of that bullet-paced first hour, or maybe it’s because writer Noah Pink overstuffed the plot with unimportant nonsense when he couldn’t decide what to do with the characters. Either way, there’s a lesson to be learned here; it’s never a bad idea to send a draft back for a rewrite or two.

Tetris
Director – John S Baird
Cast – Taron Egerton, Nikita Yefremov, Roger Allam, Toby Jones, Anthony Boyle, Togo Igawa
Rating – 3/5