Rematch, on Disney+

Garry Kasparov is a chess grandmaster, but he constantly battled Big Brothers throughout his life. First, he challenged the old Soviet regime and then he emerged as one of Putin’s most prominent critics. Along the way, he stood against nearly every totalitarian dictator on Earth as the chairman of the Human Rights Foundation. He was also seen as humanity’s champion during his matches against IBM’s AI supercomputer, Deep Blue. He easily won his first meeting with the computer then known as Dep Thought. However, their rematch was much more complicated. Creators Yan England, Bruno Nahon, and Andre Gulluni accentuate the controversies the six-episode “based-on-true-events” series, Rematch, which premieres tomorrow on Disney+ (after months of availability in international markets).

To this day, Kasparov probably remains the world’s most famous grandmaster, having eclipsed Bobby Fischer, whose years after his 1972 triumph were rather disappointing. Arguably, Kasparov’s victory over Karpov was an equal or greater victory for the free world over the Soviet regime. However, it did not come easy, as viewers eventually witness through flashbacks. Much to Kasparov’s annoyance, much of IBM’s gamesmanship away from the chessboard echoes the mind-games Karpov’s Soviet patrons tried to pull ten years earlier.

Kasparov considered his 1989 victory over Deep Thought to be an interesting experiment, but not particularly challenging, so he was not eager for a rematch. However, ambitious composite IBM exec Helen Brock recognized an opportunity to promote the brand (and the stock price) with the smarter, faster, more powerful Deep Blue. Of course, she had zero involvement with any of the actual programming. That was all the nebbish “P.C.” anonymously laboring for years in the metaphorical and literal basement.

P.C. stands for “Pretty Cringe,” which is harsh even among computer geeks. His new chess advisor, Paul Nelson, has grown bitter and anti-social, even by chess standards. He and P.C. could make a good team, but they are not the ones calling the shots. Obviously, Team Kasparov is out-numbered, so his manager-mother Klara Kasparova hires elite Australian sports agent Roger Laver to negotiate with Big Blue, but even he is stymied by their hardball methods.

Clearly, England, who helmed all six episodes, invites sympathy for Kasparov, even though he and lead actor Christian Cooke emphasize Kasparov’s high-strung neurotic mind-set, to an excessive degree. Obviously, the series focuses on the Deep Blue match, which is quite zeitgeisty given he mounting unease regarding AI. Nevertheless, it is frustrating the film almost completely ignores Kasparov’s invaluable advocacy for freedom and democracy. It is sort of like hypothtical films that solely focused on the [American] football careers of Jack Kemp or Byron White. A lot of stuff came after their pro-sports years—and the same is true for Kasparov.

Nevertheless, the scripts were the scripts—and Cooke is truly magnetic as the tightly wound grandmaster. He also shows a human side, especially with his thorny family relations, which he comes to embrace as a strength rather than a weakness, which is a quiet corollary subtly baked into Rematch.

It is also a pleasure to see Aidan Quinn liven up the film as the eternally patient Laver. Also, Orion Lee and Tom Austen nicely flesh out their characters beyond obvious stereotypes, as P.C. and Nelson. Thanks to their complex portrayals, we never really root against them—just the IBM bosses above them.

England and company do not overinflate the significance of the Deep Blue matches. However, it would be just as dramatic and even more informative and relevant to follow-up Rematch with a limited series focusing on Kasparov’s subsequent activism, which led harassments, beatings, and multiple arrests in Russia, before his necessary exile. Kasparov is a hero, but Rematch does not do him justice. However, it is still compulsively bingeable, especially if you see Deep Blue as a not-so-distant cousin to SkyNet and HAL 9000. Recommended for some real grabby chess sequences, Rematch starts streaming tomorrow (5/21) on Disney+.