Fest Track On Sirk TV Film Review: BLUE SCUTI - TETRIS CRASHER [Tribeca Film Festival 2025 - New York, NY]

The aspect of video games has become more than anything an aspect of IP and pop culture. With the success of "The Minecraft Movie," the context showed that even the periphery of the game as long as there were deep cuts has relevance for moviegoers. With "Blue Scuti: Tetris Crasher", Legendary Entertainment who financed "The Minecraft Movie" as well as "Dune" and the recent Godzilla Monster Universe movies, dips its toe into the documentary space going back in certain ways to the OG: Tetris. The game which really came to full blown prominence with the Nintendo Game Boy works on a simple premise but interestingly enough one that challenges the computer quo. Granted the build is based on 40 year old computer tech but so is computer chess. Recently ChatGPT couldn't beat the Atari 2600 because it weighed its options for so long (the 2600 did). Here Blue Scuti is the 13 year old Tetris who first crashed the Tetris game in December 2023. What is interesting is that the certain elements that have allowed players to challenge the computer is hacks, not in the game but in the backdoor of the controller. Tetris tournaments have their own subsect but with the rise of online gaming, people tend to connect a lot more.

Blue Scuti just happened to be the one that made the first break on the Guinness thought when he crashed it. Since then other things have happened and the game has been beaten in other different ways. But the film follows Scuti and what at 13 makes him the player he is, from his family to his dad, who was an inspiration but also whose illness afffected him as well. The personalites of the Tetris players (like wrestlers) varies from competitor to competitor. The film does take some interesting existential swings wihout losing the reasoning that this will play well to the Comic Con/Anime Expo crowd. Scuti doesn't have an ego but he does know the game he is playing. But as just a kid, we get to see his journey through open eyes because in a couple years what he might be doing as he moves towards college and working (if that is his path) will change everything significantly. "Blue Scuti: Tetris Crasher" is about a moment in time post-pandemic, not fettered by those thoughts but also bringing a sector of gaming alive that while more analog in a way, is every bit as connected. B+

By Tim Wassberg