Where I Watched it: Apple plus

English Audio Description?: Yes

I had no idea this was coming down the pike. Now that a Tetris movie has been released, I fully expect Pong to be next. There’s really no reason. As soon as I heard that preview, with The Final Countdown, Tetris became one of my most anticipated films of the year. I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

Well, not Tetris, that’s for sure.

The film is about Tetris, in a way, because it’s about one man (Taron Edgerton) and his relentless pursuit of the rights to the game so he can sell it to Nintendo and get it on the Game Boy. I was a kid when the Game boy came out, so trying to remember which game it came with would never have happened without either a YouTube video or this film.

But, this is a pretty serious action packed quasi-spy thriller, and it’s much better than I could ever have hoped to give it credit for. Taron is terrific, but it’s amazing how the film crosses from comedy to some really serious life and death drama all while being called Tetris. It’s just way better than it has the right to be.

However, even though the audio description is pretty solid, I had some trouble with it. There are some Russian characters, and at one point, i swear the audio description had one guy helping out Taron, only to later be the worse of the two Russians. So I think they meant to have it be the other guy, but without visual confirmation, i have no idea. But I was confused.

Also, in the perpetual inability to translate style and directorial choices, a car chase that apparently becomes 8 bit for visual viewers was treated as just a typically shot scene. Nothing special to see here, but people can’t stop talking about those graphics.

I wouldn’t give the audio description two thumbs up based on the idea that it didn’t fully bridge the gap between myself as a blind viewer and what I would have gotten as a sighted viewer, and i was still left a little confused.

But, Tetris is a fun time, and even intense at times. it may feel like we’re conflating something and making a mountain out of a molehill, but think of it as losing at Tetris. You might have a high score in the end, but when you get game over, you still have a screen that has some holes that need to be filled. It’s still imperfect, even if you beat your high score, because what you leave behind essentially fell a little short.

Final Grade: B+