My biggest takeaway after checking out Tetris, which premiered last weekend on Apple TV+, is that Taron Egerton may be one of the most underrated leading men in Hollywood right now. I’m sure that this movie, which tells the real-life story of the race to license international rights to Tetris would work with any actor playing Henk Rogers (who eventually secures the Tetris rights), but Egerton’s charisma takes it to another level. Tetris, as a whole, is fascinating, though — it’s essentially a Cold War-era thriller involving corruption, the KGB, and one of the most recognizable video games ever. Russian actor Nikita Efremov co-stars as Alexey Pajitnov, the programmer who initially designed the game Tetris; he and Egerton have excellent chemistry that really sells the real-life business partnership that came out of the events of the film. The movie utilizes music in an interesting way, too, in addition to that reworked version of the Tetris theme. A standout scene from the movie is built around Europe’s “The Final Countdown,” and it also has, in my opinion, the best use of “Holding Out For A Hero” since Shrek 2. And though some of the events are dramatized, it’s hard to be mad about that when the results are set pieces that combine live-action with 8-bit animation.
Apple TV+
