TETRIS

Taron Egerton stars as Bullet-Proof Software salesman Henk Rogers. Based in Tokyo and struggling to compete with the big boys, he's soon turned onto Tetris. Flabbergasted after just 5 minutes of playtime, he soon scours the globe in order to obtain the distribution rights for PC's, arcades, consoles, and handhelds. But, he's up against media titan Robert Maxwell (Roger Allam) who is equally looking to capitalize on the Tetris brand. Taking place in 1988, towards the end of the cold war and communism in Russia, convincing the communist to sell their game to capitalist will be no small task. The film starts out very fun and visually beautiful, turning actual pieces of film into 8-bit characters. But, once Henk realizes he needs to deal with the Russians directly rather than the middle man he had previously been dealing with in Robert Stein (Toby Jones), the film becomes quite repetitive and political. I understand the political nature due to the politics involved at the time, but again, the story seemed to be going around in circles, bringing the advancement of the story to a school zone pace. Once the issue is resolved, it's quite astonishing the deal that's reached, although, with any film based on actual events, it's always interesting and curious to see how much of what's presented is fact or fiction. 6/10