Simply brilliant

It’s 1997. Garry Kasparov, the reigning world chess champion, is locked in a battle. But his opponent isn’t another brooding grandmaster or cigar-puffing genius. It’s a machine. A hulking, humming, blue-lit beast called Deep Blue, IBM’s powerful supercomputer. The air crackles with tension, the stakes are sky high and ‘Rematch’, the six-episode miniseries, turns this real-life man-versus-machine showdown into a fast-paced, gripping story that blends high drama with a deep, emotional dive into the human mind.

It’s not just about chess moves, it is about what happens when a brilliant mind starts to question its own place in a world where machines are catching up.

At first, Kasparov walks in with the confidence of a champion. He has beaten Deep Blue before and sees it as just another tool, though powerful but no match for human intuition. But then, the machine does something unexpected. A strange move in Game 2 shakes him. It’s not just bold, it is weird. And that’s when the real unraveling begins.

What haunts Kasparov isn’t just the idea of losing, it is the fear of becoming irrelevant. His ego, once his greatest strength, turns into a weakness. He becomes paranoid, convinced that IBM is cheating and starts overthinking every move. The more he tries to control the game, the more it slips away.

Bringing all of that to life is Christian Cooke, who is a total firecracker as Kasparov. He’s got the swagger of a chess king who is used to ruling the board. Watching him pace around hotel rooms, muttering in his thick Russian accent or giving the computer a death stare like it just stole his lunch, it’s both intense and oddly fun.

This isn’t just a one-man chess show, though. It’s also a deep dive into the shadowy corridors of IBM, where executives are just as intense as any player at the board, only their games are played in boardrooms. Sarah Bolger is pitch-perfect as Helen Brock, a fictional corporate strategist who is as sharp as her wardrobe. She adds a deliciously shady vibe to the proceedings, the kind that makes you wonder, is the machine winning fair and square or is something sneaky going on? ‘Rematch’ never gives you a clear answer.

The rest of the cast shines, too, with Orion Lee as Deep Blue’s socially awkward programmer PC, who humanises the machine with quirky devotion. Trine Dyrholm delivers a nuanced performance as Kasparov’s mother, balancing maternal warmth and managerial steeliness.

And yes, there’s chess. Lots of it. But don’t let that scare you. This isn’t slow, whispery, sipping-tea chess. This is high-octane! Director Yan England finds clever ways to make every move feel dramatic, the camera angles, pounding music, chess pieces landing like punches.

What makes ‘Rematch’ truly fascinating is that it is not just about who wins the game, it is about something much bigger. It explores what happens when a genius is forced to face a machine that might just outsmart him.

In 2025, with AI now part of almost everything, the story feels even more real. ‘Rematch’ is electric. Don’t miss it.