This year has seen a ton of great content on Apple TV+ so far, with shows like Shrinking and Extrapolations. If you’re looking for something a bit different, then Apple’s biographical film Tetris looks to be one of the year’s quirkier streaming releases. Starring Taron Egerton (who recently collaborated with Apple’s acclaimed Black Bird), Tetris Apple TV+’s new film tells the story of the game that took the planet by storm, and the legal battle to secure rights to it.

The film is directed by Jon S. Baird, who’s previous work includes the James McAvoy starring Filth and Stan & Ollie. The block stacking game Tetris was created in the mid 1980s by Soviet software engineer Alexey Pajitnov, and it quickly became a sensation across the USSR. But the film is about the man who helped commercialise it and bring it to the masses: Henk Rogers (Egerton), a Dutch entrepreneur with an eye for addictive entertainment.

When Henk discovers the game at a convention in Japan, he realises it’s potential, and heads on a perilous journey to the Soviet Union to bring the game to the other side of the Iron Curtain. Henk’s obsession with the game and making it a bit gets to the point where he stakes his family’s financial security on it, but he’s convinced he’ll be vindicated. He’s in a truly alien word to his own, and will stop at nothing to achieve his vision.

It’s not just the story of an entrepreneur’s obsession with a future iconic video game that makes Tetris intriguing, it’s the other real world figures who form part of the plot. Business tycoon Robert Maxwell, whose life was explored in last year’s docuseries House of Maxwell, is interested in acquiring the rights alongside his son Kevin to the hit game and expanding the family business. Maxwell is played by Roger Allam (Game of Thrones, Endeavour), and soon enters into a legal battle between himself and Henk. In between them is Robert Stein (The Detectorists’ Toby Jones), who acts as the negotiator.

The official trailer promises a true story that really is stranger than fiction, as Henk’s journey becomes increasingly more perilous and tied up with the politics of the Cold War- all The Final Countdown.

Tetris is getting a special screening at Everyman Cinemas on 28th March, before arriving on the streaming service itself on 31st March

Culture

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