Rematch Season 1 Review: A gripping and brilliantly staged battle of mind vs machine
Review: 'Rematch' is a psychological thriller drama built around Garry Kasparov's iconic 1997 face-off with IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer. The series walks a fine line between historical fiction and intense character study. Directed by Yan England, it doesn't merely chronicle chess games—it dissects the mind of a genius, slightly intimidated by something he can't fully comprehend. While the setting is the chessboard, the show unfolds like a thriller, complete with boardroom politics and cold ambition. The tone is dark, atmospheric, and unapologetically stylized, giving the narrative an edge that's as much about psychological warfare as it is about pawns and kings. Full credit must go to the director for making this a riveting watch, even for those uninitiated in the game of chess.
The series opens with Garry Kasparov (Christian Cooke) comfortably defeating Deep Blue in a six-round match in 1996. But when IBM chief George Silverman (Donald Sage Mackay) calls a boardroom meeting to investigate the company's declining edge, VP Helen Brock (Sarah Bolger) suggests that the real threat is the rise of the internet. She sees an opportunity in the chess duel and persuades Kasparov for a rematch, promising that the machine is now better equipped and Kasparov will earn a $1 million paycheck. Once Kasparov agrees, IBM launches a marketing blitz, branding the duel as a once-in-a-lifetime event. After he wins the first round, panic sets in. Brock brings in grandmasters to secretly assist Deep Blue. The plot soon leans into paranoia—was IBM playing fair? Were humans aiding the machine mid-game? And despite the known outcome, the suspense remains gripping.
Christian Cooke brings both intensity and quiet rage to Kasparov—equal parts brilliance and brittleness. He portrays a man long used to being the smartest in the room, now spiralling as his opponent remains eerily emotionless. Trine Dyrholm as Kasparov's mother provides emotional grounding through flashbacks, offering warmth amid the cold tech world. Bolger's fictional character adds dramatic tension, though her arc occasionally feels underwritten. The rest of the ensemble—largely techies and aides—help root the narrative in realism. But make no mistake, 'Rematch' is an out-and-out Cooke show; his performance anchors the emotional weight of the story.
The series succeeds most in building mood—oppressive, cerebral, and haunting. The cinematography and sound design mirror the protagonist's inner chaos, and the use of real chess games lends authenticity. However, the pacing is uneven. Some episodes move briskly, while others loop around the same psychological terrain, offering little new insight. At times, the dramatization slips into melodrama, particularly in its attempt to paint Kasparov as a tragic, almost mythic figure.
'Rematch' is less about chess and more about what it means to be human in the shadow of looming, powerful, unstoppable technology. The show thrives on atmosphere and psychological nuance rather than plot twists. While it takes dramatic liberties, it remains anchored to its core theme—the fear of becoming obsolete. Even when it stumbles, it remains compelling. For viewers interested in history, AI, or the human psyche under pressure, it's a rewarding watch. With its layered drama, sharp performances, and thematic depth, the man-versus-machine battle feels deeply personal.
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Indian Express
3 days ago
- Indian Express
When chess legend Garry Kasparov tried to make the machine blink… and failed
Over the last couple of years, the world has been gripped by a Y2K-esque paranoia of a different kind: wondering if artificial intelligence will become all-conquering. Garry Kasparov, former world champion and one of the greatest chess players in history, was possibly among the earliest humans to mull this question — will AI take over my job? — sometime back in the 90s. 'I am not unsympathetic to those whose lives and livelihoods have been negatively impacted by disruptive new technology. Few people in the world know better than I do what it's like to have your life's work threatened by a machine,' Kasparov once wrote in his book Deep Thinking, which chronicles his famous battles with machines. An early evangelist of man versus machine contests, Kasparov added: 'No one was sure what would happen if and when a chess machine beat the world champion. Would there still be professional chess tournaments? Would there be sponsorship and media coverage of my world championship matches if people thought the best chess player in the world was a machine? Would people still play chess at all?' Ironically, Kasparov was thinking this in an era where his powers were at their peak. He was the undisputed world champion. And having brushed aside the challenge of every man that faced off against him on the chess board, Kasparov started to seek battles against supercomputers, with minds made out of silicon, nerves of wires and bodies held together in large metal cupboards. Among his many duels with electronic foes, the two battles with a supercomputer created by IBM, called Deep Blue, became the most famous. It is this Kasparov vs Deep Blue battle — famously called 'The Brain's Last Stand' by Newsweek magazine on its cover back then — that forms the setting of 'Rematch', a six-part miniseries released on Lionsgate Play late last week. Starring Christian Cooke with a pitch-perfect accent and a voice with a gravitas befitting the intimidating Kasparov, 'Rematch' uses the first Kasparov vs Deep Blue battle in Philadelphia in 1996 (which Kasparov won easily) to set the backdrop of the actual battle: the second contest in 1997, which Kasparov lost in New York. As Kasparov once pointed out, the first battle was a science experiment. The second one was war with a machine. 'Rematch' captures the drama of both these duels, with a few creative liberties to spice up an already intriguing battle between the greatest general on the battlefield of 64 squares and a large cupboard that could think faster than anyone had thought before. The man behind the machine, Feng-hsiung Hsu, called it a battle between 'man as a performer and man as a toolmaker'. It was a war that made global headlines back in the 90s. 'How do you make a computer blink?' ran the catchphrase across giant posters advertising the 1997 chess match. Kasparov's duels with computers started even before he became a world champion. In one particularly enjoyable one for the Russian, in Hamburg in June 1985, he played a simultaneous exhibition game (called simul) against 32 computers created by four chess computer manufacturers. 'One of the organisers warned me that playing against machines was different. Because they would never get tired or resign in dejection the way a human opponent would; they would play to the bitter end,' wrote Kasparov in Deep Thinking. Kasparov won each of the 32 games. 'These were the good ol' days of human versus machine chess. But this golden age would be brutally short,' he noted. So short, that in 1997, just 12 years after he had defeated 32 computers in a row in a span of five hours, Kasparov was handed defeat in New York by IBM's $10 billion supercomputer, Deep Blue. 'Chess computers went from being laughably weak to being nearly unbeatable during my 20 years as the world's top player,' Kasparov wrote. For those interested in computer speak on how Deep Blue ended up making Kasparov blink instead of the other way round (Kasparov won one game out of six while the machine won two games), the second machine which took down the Russian used '32 processors to perform a set of coordinated, high-speed computations in parallel. Deep Blue was able to evaluate 200 million chess positions per second, achieving a processing speed of 11.38 billion floating-point operations per second, or flops', notes the IBM website. 'They improved the databases dealing with chess endgames, created a more powerful evaluation function for chess positions, hired additional chess grandmasters to advise the team, and developed methods to disguise the computer's strategy.' In 'Rematch', before the second man vs machine battle, Kasparov is doing an interview where he is asked by a reporter: 'In a factory, when a machine outperforms an employee, the employee will often lose their job.' An introspective Kasparov/Cooke opts not to answer the question. This question is the elephant in the room of the whole battle. In one of the earliest scenes of 'Rematch', the man behind the Deep Blue asks Kasparov/Cooke: 'Aren't you even a little concerned you might lose?' A belligerent Kasparov responds: 'Why would I be concerned? It's a science experiment and computers are the future. I want to see what Deep Blue is capable of more than anyone else. But of course I will win.' Machines did become much stronger. Much stronger than humans will ever be on the board. But yet, the world does not spend time watching two machines fight each other while being tended to by human handlers. It would rather watch humans test themselves, even with flaws in their game play, against other humans. Why? The answer lies in what transpired after Kasparov's defeat in New York. Even though the Russian was deeply livid at his defeat — at the press conference afterward, he is said to have 'personally guaranteed' that he would 'tear Deep Blue into pieces' in games if it started playing competitive chess tournaments — Kasparov lent himself to plenty more 'science experiments'. One of them, in 1998 in Leon, saw Kasparov team up with a computer running his preferred chess program (German chess program Fritz 5) while taking on Veselin Topalov using ChessBase 7.0. They didn't just use the computers in the background for their prep as every professional chess player does now. They were allowed to use them during the game. The result was a 3-3 tie. And therein lies the problem with computer perfection. If two of the world's best computers played against each other, the result would inevitably be a dead draw. Who would want to watch that? Amit Kamath is Assistant Editor at The Indian Express and is based in Mumbai. ... Read More
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First Post
17-07-2025
- First Post
Christian Cooke on playing chess legend Garry Kasparov in ‘Rematch': ‘He was a very aggressive player…'
In an interview with Firstpost's Lachmi Deb Roy, for 'Not Just Bollywood', English actor Christian Cooke shares how he prepared to play Garry Kasparov in 'Rematch'. He talks about the process that went behind approaching the part and how he tried hard not to mimic him. read more In 1997, the world watched as chess legend Garry Kasparov took on IBM's Deep Blue in a battle that blurred the line between man and machine. Christian Cooke captures Kasparov's brilliance and inner turmoil, while Sarah Bolger brings heart to the emotional storm behind the scenes. This was more than just a match; it was a test of pride, intelligence, and what it means to be human. As pressure mounts and trust falters, the game turns into something far bigger. Rematch dives deep into a defining moment where logic met legacy, and the clock never stopped ticking. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD In an EXCLUSIVE interview with Firstpost, Christian Cooke talks about Rematch now showing on Lionsgate Play and how it was a challenge to him playing a real person. Edited excerpts from the interview: How much pressure was there to play the role; since you are playing a real person? I guess there's always pressure when it's you're playing a real person, a real historical figure. And it's an event, a lot of people know about, though it happened 30 years ago. If it was an event that happened five or ten-years ago, then it would be fresh in people's minds. I don't really look a lot like Garry, so I think that helps because obviously a lot of the audience maybe don't know what exactly Garry Kasparov looks like, so they can sort of get lost in the character a bit more. I didn't really want to imitate him, his voice or, you know, like, try and mimic him. I just wanted to sort of capture the essence of who he was as a person, the spirit of Garry Kasparov, which was someone who's very focused, single-minded and driven. If I did any sort of mimicry, it was how he was at the chessboard. When he was at the chessboard, it was his sort of posture, the way he moved the pieces, the way he leaned over the board. People used to say that he was a very aggressive player which I didn't know much about. Well, I find it quite odd that someone could be an aggressive chess player. Because it's you we see it as such a civilized game where people are just using their hands to move pieces. But I think it would I think, obviously, it's his style of play, how sort of, the speed at which he advances. There's always pressure, but I think we need that to thrive sometimes. For me that pressure is very important to do a good job. Christian Cooke on playing chess legend Garry Kasparov in 'Rematch': 'He was a very aggressive player…' How pro did you get with the game? To be honest, I'm probably not much better at all than when I started, I think, because a lot of what I was doing is playing. I was actually learning the actual chess moves that he played as opposed to sort of, like, learning to become a better chess player myself. It was more like we know, the chess games in the show are exact games and moves that were played in real life. It was another learning exercise, really. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD You would sort of have to learn your dialogue and whatever, but then also learn these moves. And the way that Yan shot the chess games, he would do these long continuous takes where he would want to shoot sort of 30 moves at a time. So, we would be meeting up in each other's hotel rooms on an evening to practice the chess games, just so that we really remembered where the pieces went. I am not sure my chess actually improved that much at all, really. Since he's a Russian, just wanting to know from you, he has an accent which is very Russian, so his English was very different right. How did you learn that accent and his mannerisms? He spoke with a Russian accent. Garry studied English at university. He travelled a lot. He spent a lot of time in America. I think he's lived in New York now and since the eighties, I believe. He is now anglicised or Americanised. So, the Russian accent was tough. I worked with a dialect coach. I just wanted to sort of have a convincing Russian accent, but one that wasn't sort of insanely strong. Because I think that can be quite distracting. And as I mentioned, I didn't want it to sound like I am mimicking him. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD I think anytime you're doing a strong accent, but you're still using the English language, it's like if you were doing well, if you were speaking with an Indian accent or if you were speaking with a French accent, they're very strong accents in the English language. And I think that sometimes that can be, you know, when the audience might know that the actor is not from that place, that can be sometimes quite distracting. So, I wanted it to flow and be sort of believable, but not be too pronounced. I think that was true to Garry as well because Gary was so sort of Americanised, he didn't he, you know, he didn't sound like a Bond villain. A still from 'Rematch' How difficult was it to get inside the mind of this chess grandmaster? I think one of the things was he was quite like an athlete, I think. He approached the match like an athlete. I'm into boxing, and I watch a lot of boxing, and I used to train in boxing. I think when you have these disciplines and these sports like boxing, tennis, chess, there's a huge psychological element to it. It's not a skill playing the game, but also getting into the mind of the opponent and the mentality when you're on the back foot being able to bring yourself back and stay in the present. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD
Time of India
17-07-2025
- Time of India
Rematch Season 1 Review: A gripping and brilliantly staged battle of mind vs machine
Story: Set against the high-stakes world of chess, this gripping drama reimagines the iconic 1997 face-off between world champion Garry Kasparov and IBM's supercomputer Deep Blue. Review: 'Rematch' is a psychological thriller drama built around Garry Kasparov's iconic 1997 face-off with IBM's Deep Blue supercomputer. The series walks a fine line between historical fiction and intense character study. Directed by Yan England, it doesn't merely chronicle chess games—it dissects the mind of a genius, slightly intimidated by something he can't fully comprehend. While the setting is the chessboard, the show unfolds like a thriller, complete with boardroom politics and cold ambition. The tone is dark, atmospheric, and unapologetically stylized, giving the narrative an edge that's as much about psychological warfare as it is about pawns and kings. Full credit must go to the director for making this a riveting watch, even for those uninitiated in the game of chess. The series opens with Garry Kasparov (Christian Cooke) comfortably defeating Deep Blue in a six-round match in 1996. But when IBM chief George Silverman (Donald Sage Mackay) calls a boardroom meeting to investigate the company's declining edge, VP Helen Brock (Sarah Bolger) suggests that the real threat is the rise of the internet. She sees an opportunity in the chess duel and persuades Kasparov for a rematch, promising that the machine is now better equipped and Kasparov will earn a $1 million paycheck. Once Kasparov agrees, IBM launches a marketing blitz, branding the duel as a once-in-a-lifetime event. After he wins the first round, panic sets in. Brock brings in grandmasters to secretly assist Deep Blue. The plot soon leans into paranoia—was IBM playing fair? Were humans aiding the machine mid-game? And despite the known outcome, the suspense remains gripping. Christian Cooke brings both intensity and quiet rage to Kasparov—equal parts brilliance and brittleness. He portrays a man long used to being the smartest in the room, now spiralling as his opponent remains eerily emotionless. Trine Dyrholm as Kasparov's mother provides emotional grounding through flashbacks, offering warmth amid the cold tech world. Bolger's fictional character adds dramatic tension, though her arc occasionally feels underwritten. The rest of the ensemble—largely techies and aides—help root the narrative in realism. But make no mistake, 'Rematch' is an out-and-out Cooke show; his performance anchors the emotional weight of the story. The series succeeds most in building mood—oppressive, cerebral, and haunting. The cinematography and sound design mirror the protagonist's inner chaos, and the use of real chess games lends authenticity. However, the pacing is uneven. Some episodes move briskly, while others loop around the same psychological terrain, offering little new insight. At times, the dramatization slips into melodrama, particularly in its attempt to paint Kasparov as a tragic, almost mythic figure. 'Rematch' is less about chess and more about what it means to be human in the shadow of looming, powerful, unstoppable technology. The show thrives on atmosphere and psychological nuance rather than plot twists. While it takes dramatic liberties, it remains anchored to its core theme—the fear of becoming obsolete. Even when it stumbles, it remains compelling. For viewers interested in history, AI, or the human psyche under pressure, it's a rewarding watch. With its layered drama, sharp performances, and thematic depth, the man-versus-machine battle feels deeply personal.
