Tetris is the rare video-game movie that actually understands the assignment: it is fast, addictive, colorful, and sneakily smarter than it first appears. Jon S. Baird’s 2023 Apple TV+ film takes one of the most familiar puzzles on Earth and turns the fight to own it into a zippy Cold War caper that never forgets to be fun.
Taron Egerton plays Henk Rogers, a Dutch-born, Japan-based game entrepreneur who spots Tetris at a 1988 Las Vegas trade show and immediately recognizes what almost nobody else does: those falling blocks are a license to print money. What follows is a globe-trotting scramble through contracts, double-crosses, Nintendo boardrooms, and the dying Soviet Union. Henk bets his house, his marriage, and eventually his safety on locking down the rights before the Maxwell media empire or a weaselly middleman (Toby Jones, perfectly slimy) can snatch them.
The movie is at its best when it treats deal-making like a boss fight. Conference rooms become arenas. Handshake agreements turn into landmines. Baird and writer Noah Pink lean into the absurdity without winking too hard. Pixelated title cards introduce new players like a game loading screen. The soundtrack is all synth and 8-bit energy. When the story finally explodes into a Moscow car chase, the film briefly becomes the arcade game it is about. It should feel gimmicky. Instead it feels like the movie finally catching the same high as its hero.
Egerton is the engine. He plays Henk as an optimistic hustler who talks too fast, smiles too wide, and refuses to accept that a Dutch guy from Japan has no business walking into Moscow and asking the Soviet state for its most valuable software. It is one of his most likable performances: not the polished Kingsman swagger, but a sweaty, charming, slightly reckless underdog who keeps stacking pieces until they lock. Nikita Efremov gives Alexey Pajitnov a quiet dignity that grounds the Hollywood flourishes. Their eventual partnership is the film’s real payoff — two men from opposite sides of the Iron Curtain bonding over code and stubbornness.
Yes, the movie takes liberties. The KGB intrigue is juiced. The climax is more Argo than documentary. Anyone who has read the actual licensing history will notice the shortcuts. None of that matters much while you are watching. Tetris is not trying to be a courtroom record. It is trying to make you feel the rush of watching something simple and perfect break free of a system that wanted to keep it locked away.
At just under two hours it never overstays. It is funny, tense, and surprisingly warm. In a year when plenty of prestige biopics forgot to entertain, this one remembered that falling blocks only work if you keep the pace moving and the colors bright. Play it. Clear the line. Hit start again.
