Game Over (2003) User Reviews

Flawed but fascinating.

[Balibari · 8/10 · 18 August 2004]

Vikram Jayanti's documentary on the 1997 clash between IBM super-computer Deep Blue and Russian chess grand master Garry Kasparov is frustrating and fascinating in equal measure.

Kasparov's insistence that IBM cheated (by using one or more chess masters to influence the computer during the match) seems perfectly possible, but the computer manufacturers refusal to allow either a rematch or analysis of their data makes it impossible to substantiate the claims. Sadly that doesn't stop Jayanti, his subjective approach is unaffected by the apparent stalemate.

Fortunately the film has more to offer. The actual match becomes hugely dramatic and exciting in Jayanti's hands. Kasparov himself is an extremely enigmatic and passionate figure, the footage of him in the press conferences that took place after each of the six games is dynamite. In the second, he accuses IBM of cheating. In the last, after nine days of play, he appears on stage looking physically and mentally destroyed, the applause that greets him (and the boos for IBM) would seem to indicate a general feeling of suspicion of IBM's sportsmanship and honesty.

Too subjective to be a 'great' documentary, it is still a fascinating insight into a game and community that would seem to offer much potential for future study.

Good, but flawed

[Billius · 6/10 · 10 July 2005]

Game Over chronicles the infamous chess rematch between world champion Gary Kasparov and Deep Blue, an IBM supercomputer specially designed for the game that took over 30 man-years to create. The film itself is a mere 85 minutes and wastes no time making its assault on IBM, starting off with a damning reference to "The Turk," a famous hoax which purported to be a chess automaton. Roughly half of the film continues this bare-knuckle attack, with the director using creepy fade shots interspersed with interviews with IBM employees and an annoying whisper voice commentary to clearly inform the audience of who the "bad guys" are. This blatant taking of sides from early on is somewhat distracting to the viewer, as the facts presented later seem questionable due to the overwhelming bias of the filmmaker. For example, the film notably does not mention one of the programmer's attempts to stage another rematch between Kasparov and Deep Blue. Seeing as one of the primary arguments used to discredit Deep Blue's win is the refusal of a rematch on IBM's part, it seems outright irresponsible to ignore this important fact completely.

The other, and much better, half of the film is the story of Gary Kasprov and the trials and tribulations he faced during his match against Deep Blue in 1997. The film shows a side of Kasparov many may be unfamiliar with. While the mainstream media at the time seemed bent on selling him as an arrogant, flustered, and tactless mad scientist of sorts, Kasparov proves the contrary with his charisma and wit. He acts as a kind of tour guide throughout the film, taking the viewer everywhere from the headquarters of the Soviet chess program to the site of the match in New York. Not surprisingly, most viewers will find themselves rooting for a considerably humanized Kasparov and feeling the sting of defeat as the overwhelming pressure of the press, the matches and the future of chess all wreak havoc on his concentration.

Unfortunately for chess buffs, the film itself pays little attention to the actual match itself. It gives a brief description of how each side did in each game and briefly points out the move Kasparov thought was too "uncomputer-like" to have been made by a machine. The DVD, however, does have a fairly detailed reenactment of the matches done in Chessmaster, complete with commentary. The unbalanced and frankly boring and repetitive slam on IBM earns a 3, but the compelling story of Gary Kasparov earns a 9, making this film a 6 over all. If you are interested in the subject, it's worth the rent but the attack on IBM seems too vicious considering the hazy circumstances.

Gripping, though undoubtedly one-sided

[tomgillespie2002 · 7/10 · 21 September 2011]

When James Cameron released The Terminator back in 1984 with its mythology of a future robot-human war that would lead to the planet's possible destruction, I doubt he would have envisaged a similar battle taking place thirteen years later. But there would be no time-travelling cyborg, no unborn future saviour, no battle-scarred landscapes full of human skulls, and certainly no Michael Biehn. This one was much more low-key. It consisted of one genius chess player, one super-computer, and a small band of smug computer nerds.

After beating IBM's Deep Blue computer in a chess match in 1996, world champion chess master Garry Kasparov, widely regarded as the best player in history, agreed to take up a re-match a year later. This time, IBM believed it had something up his sleeve, recruiting former chess champions to 'teach' Deep Blue how to play like a human. It was to be a fun experiment, pitting man against machine. After demolishing Deep Blue in the first round, IBM came back in the second to beat Kasparov. Sending Kasparov into a paranoid decline as Deep Blue's power became apparent, he starts to wonder about the legitimacy of IBM's claims, the goings-on behind closed doors, and why the IBM corporation are refusing to show the computer match logs.

First of all, for a documentary about chess, this is purely riveting stuff. The psychological torment that can be experienced by chess players engulfs Kasparov. As the experts say, chess is a game where you must be expectant and suspicious of your opponent, making it an ultimately paranoid game. The mind games that Kasparov accuses IBM of playing on him just destroys him, and his deterioration is played out in the fantastic stock footage of the match. The film eventually becomes not only a study of what it means to be human, but also a commentary on the corruption of corporations - I must say, although nothing is proved, it is clear where director Vikram Jayanti's beliefs lie.

The film begins with title cards explaining how an 18th-century chess- playing machine called 'The Turk' managed to beat a number of players, including Napoleon Bonaparte. It was apparently a well-constructed machine, but was in fact a hoax, and tricks and construction allowed for a person to fit inside it, but create the illusion that only cogs and mechanics lay inside. It is used as an obvious metaphor for the accusation faced by IBM of cheating and playing the man in the machine. In fairness, the film offers the men behind Deep Blue the chance to have their say, and they do themselves no favours. They come across as arrogant and smarmy. Yet the film's obvious siding with Kasparov seems unfair given that the accusations made against IBM are unproven, and no evidence is offered in the film.

That flaw aside, this is undoubtedly a gripping documentary, and Kasparov makes for a warm host and narrator. The match seemed to have its effect on Kasparov, as he soon lost his world title afterwards, and the mental strain and bitterness is still there to see. It did actually make me want to play chess too, although I'm crap.

www.the-wrath-of-blog.blogspot.com

Entertaining though disappointing documentary.

[david_w_henderson · 9 September 2003]

I was very much entertained by this film, which I saw at the 2003 Toronto International Film Festival. I was also disappointed; it lacked the objectivity I expect in a documentary. Overall it presented too much imagery, and not enough facts to satisfy my desire to know more about what "really happened" during May of 1997.

The film recounts the 1997 chess rematch between Gary Kasparov and IBM's "Deep Blue" computer. Much of the film describes and investigates the aftermath of one key event that occurred during the match. During the second game, the computer played a chess move that surprised the entire chess community, including Kasparov. Kasparov was in disbelief a computer would be capable of the style of play corresponding with the move, and lost the game. Afterwards he accused the IBM team of cheating (through human intervention). IBM denied the accusation.

While this film will be of particular interest to chess fans, I believe it is still accessible to those without chess knowledge (I know the rules and have played some games of chess so I could be mistaken). Any chess understanding necessary to understand the critical "move" is explained by various people in non-chess terms. In my option, the interesting stuff is not on the chess board anyway.

Kasparov really fills the screen. He is certainly very engaging. As too are most of the other people he shares the screen with.

Throughout the film, scenes are connected with images invoking an 18th century chess playing machine called "The Turk". This "machine" is now known to be an illusion; a human operator was making the decisions during games. Other scenes are connected with short haunting stills of hallways, presumably at the IBM research centre where "Deep Blue" was created.

I found these scenes to be tiresome after the third iteration. In the case of "The Turk", I don't know if they were intended to reflect the "mystery" of the cheating accusation, but as some of the images clearly show a human operating the machine, it left little room for doubt in my mind that these were intended to in some way support the cheating accusation. In the case of the "spooky hallways" images, again, they suggested to me that the filmmaker supports in some sense the accusation.

I wish more time was spent presenting the IBM side - especially more screen time with Joel Benjamin, the chess expert on the IBM team most qualified to defend IBM's assertion that the machine was capable of playing as it did during the second game of the match.

After the film's screening, the director, Mr. Vikram Jayanti answered some questions from the audience. During this session, he first made it clear he had no option if IBM "cheated" or not. In answering a subsequent question, while not directly stating it, his comments made it seem that he did in fact think IBM cheated. This pretty much reflected what I experienced during the movie. I wished if he really thought that IBM cheated, he would have been more clear, and more fully explored the facts.

Not the last word on either Kasparov or the computer vs. grand master story

[Chris Knipp · 7/10 · 26 February 2006]

In 1997 Kasparov, considered (according, that is, to this biased documentary), the greatest chess player in history, played a high profile match against an IMB supercomputer called Deep Blue devised for the sole purpose of not only playing world class chess but beating the greatest of grand masters -- in fact created specifically to beat Kasparov. The stakes were $700,000-$400,000, winner/loser. It can't be said that Deep Blue really beat Kasparov, who had beaten a simpler form of the computer several years earlier. What happened is that the second of the six games spooked Kasparov so much -- and he resigned, when later it was pointed out he might have achieved a draw -- that he never recovered psychologically, and by game six he was a psychological wreck, couldn't focus, and resigned, thereby losing the match.

Surely Jayanti has a good subject: the human brain against artificial intelligence, the triumph of steely mindless machinery over brilliant, volatile intellectual genius. The filmmaker spoils his documentary by intruding too much with portentous music, gimmicky images of antique dolls, and by providing too little perspective outside the viewpoint of Kasparov himself, not even questioning the wild and unsubstantiated accusations that Kasparov throws out against IBM. There's still interest here, and so much at stake that it may be understandable that some (again wildly) have called this the best film about chess ever. Nonetheless that seems a bit of a misnomer given that there is so little specifically about chess and its moves -- though there is valuable and relevant information about the psychological pressures of great matches and the statistical complexity of the game itself.

Kasparov's personality is lively and his English is good, but that is not enough in itself to counteract the gimmicky use of antique mechanical chess-playing dummies as a suggestive "echo" of the IMB mega-computer Deep Blue, the portentous music, the pseudo-spooky whispering voice-overs, and Jayanti's aforementioned refusal to challenge any claims Kasparov makes about the way things went or about his place in the history of world chess.

Kasparov challenged Karpov in 1984-85 in a huge series of games, Armenian Jew against, as he saw it, the Soviet block -- a styling much favored (though the film does not note this obvious aspect) by Cold War attitudes in the United States -- and for his overall performance he had established himself as "the greatest chess player in history." (The many possible challenges to that claim are something the film doesn't go into for a moment.) In 1997 IBM, seeking to improve its stolid image against the livelier profiles of Microsoft and Apple, staged a hugely promoted New York six-game match between Kasparov and a newly improved and enlarged Deep Blue. They had six boffins lined up before and after each game, the chess and programming experts who were Deep Blue's handlers. Was that good strategy, lining up six grinning Asian and Caucasian nerds against one challenged Armenian Jew? Doubtful; and though at the end, IBM sternly directed its crew not to smile, that did little to offset its earlier displays of conspicuous nerdly smugness. IBM also maintained tight security around the emplacement of the large computer, and refused ever to release printouts of its operations to Kasparov. According to him, they promised to at the end, but never did.

What happened is this: in game one, Deep Blue played like a machine, and Kasparov won easily. He thought that would continue. But in game two, he attempted a trick with pawns -- the film never goes into any detail about the actual chess moves and offers little of concrete interest to chess enthusiasts, but something that would normally lead a computer astray, into immediate profiting. But the machine didn't fall for it, and instead embarked on a mysterious and very humanoid-seeming grand strategy that put Kasparov in a very bad position. He was stunned. He overreacted, resigning as mentioned though later he realized he could have extracted a draw from the situation. From game two on, the champion became lastingly paranoid. And throughout the rest of the match, he never got over it. He suspected that some grand masters were assisting in deciding the moves of Deep Blue against him; and there were plenty of grand masters around, presumably in the employ of IBM. It's generally agreed, according to the film, that even a merely fine chess player, not necessarily world class, working together with a computer, could beat anybody. And that would not have been fair, and wasn't what was agreed upon. However, the film never provides a shred of evidence that IBM cheated in this way. All that's clear is that a machine doesn't lose its cool, and a human chess player very often does. Great a player as he is, Kasparov isn't cool. Someone remarks that he would make a terrible poker player, and in fact when things (in his view) are not going well, it is written all over his face and conspicuous in his body language. Kasparov, and Jayanti with his style, suggest that IBM's manipulations connect with Eighties YUPPIE thinking and corporate, Enron-style greed. But there is no proof of this. All that is clear is that IBM lacked finesse in its handling of the match, but profited much by it: stock went up in value 15% after this event. Where Kasparov is now isn't made very clear, but the film states that he is still playing and winning, against humans, and in 2003 tied in a match against the latest computer chess master, Deep Blue Junior, in Israel, and has met various challenges in recent years, been beaten, but still remains "the greatest." You can review Kasparov's chess history online at various sites. Kasparov is a great player. His role in world chess has been far more dubious than this documentary would have us believe. His full story, with all its pros and cons, has yet to be etched in celluloid.

Not perfect, but fascinatating

[cmcd-26658 · 7/10 · 11 February 2021]

Not sure why everyone is saying that this is biased. There was lots of screen time for IBM. Their reasoning for concealing everything was pretty weak in my opinion. Legal mumbo jumbo about private vs public matches, absurd excuses about concealing code and game logs. Not on the up and up in the least. The movie itself was a fascinating discussion about the nature of corporate PR and the possible taking advantage of a tightly controlled publicity campaign. They made it seem like everything was out in the open, but if you look a layer below, the signs of opaqueness are, at the least, concerning. Engineers being allowed to tinker in between games, putting the computer in a locked room, refusing to display code or log files, immediately abandoning a rematch and destroying the computer. The IBM engineer in the movie even seemed to be gaslighting and turning the screw deeper on film. He relished in the controversy and mind games. If that is the man behind deep blue, I would be very concerned. He seemed like a sociopath. But that's just my two cents. If they played it fair, they certainly didn't behave like they did after the fact. Let alone the suspicious mistakes mixed with brilliant moves in game 1 and 2. The movie is fascinating and less biased than people give credit for. The turk B Roll is a bit gratuitous, but overall, IBM got to march out their weak excuses for hiding and controlling everything. The upside for them was way too high to not make all the circumstantial evidence baseless. Its a must see if you are a chess fan.

The Real Deal

[bergen_aeon · 10/10 · 21 December 2004]

I just watched this movie about a week ago. I still recall back in 1997 when Kasparov lost the series of games against Deep Blue. I was about 20 years old. What became very fascinating was, not that the man lost a battle against machine, but the fact that Deep Blue never showed up again. I never saw any other match, or a new chip was built using that programing knowledge. Nothing. 7 years later am confronted by a great documentary, that answers me why i never saw the blue again. I'm a filmmaker as well, and beating the crap out of IBM the way this film does, is anything buy easy. Very well documented, the storytelling is good and the way the camera moves along with the state of mind of the interviewers is just superb.

For those who still think America has anything good and noble to give, this film shows that Enron and the Iraq War are just the other side of the same coin, the truth that movies like Farenheid 9/11 and this one bravely toss in our faces. Nothing, and as you can see in this film, nothing in America happens because so.

Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine (2003)

[SnakesOnAnAfricanPlain · 7/10 · 13 December 2011]

Man Vs. Machine. The human mind takes on a computer, and fails. As we see, all men succumb to paranoia, stress, confidence and so on. But is everything as it seems? Kasparov certainly presents an interesting case, but given the times, it's only natural we all hate the big company. Sure, it's suspicious that he never got a rematch. That things were kept locked behind closed doors etc. Kasparov clearly has a love for the game, and shows himself to be better than any computer by granting a rematch to his rival from many years before. Unfortunately, the director clearly has a bias and isn't very subtle about it. When the journalist talks about his article, he is shot from a high angle, half-lit and very shadowy. He is the only person shot like this. Making it kind of humorous, but also unfair. It's a great story, and Kasparov has nothing to be ashamed of. After all, he was beaten by just a single game, and the computer took many programmers etc. Certainly sparked my interest in chess.

Compelling

[gaffertape2002 · 8/10 · 8 September 2003]

I can't say that I was too interested in seeing a documentary about chess, but I was very pleasantly surprised. An utterly involving film, even if it asks more questions than it answers. Kasparov is a great deal more charismatic than I had imagined. I'd be very curious to see what IBM thinks of this doc.

Man vs. Machine... of course, you root for Kasparov

[turkam · 7/10 · 3 August 2006]

I found this film to be interesting and entertaining. It has a style which is very reminiscent of Erroll Morris. It has been criticized for showing too much favoritism towards Kasparov, but I think most people do root for man over the machine. It is ironic that we are starting to see Russians as protagonists. We've come a long way since "Red Dawn." My main criticism of the film is that much like "Bowling for Columbine," it offers no real resolution. I think that is why it is a good doc as opposed to a great one. Kasparov is a very engaging figure with a strong cinematic presence. He is now involved with politics in Russia. Assuredly, if Ahnuld can make it, why not Kasparov?

Not enough content

[alan-447 · 4/10 · 30 May 2005]

I am a chess player and I wanted to like this film. Trouble is, the content could have been fitted in a 30-minute documentary.

There were lots of shots of corridors being walked down and Kasparov gazing out in the hall where he won the World Championship. There were other shots of Kasparov being walked round the site of the 1997 match and being told where he sat and where Deep Blue was located. This just looked like filler.

Also, I didn't find it interesting to see in detail where Deep Blue was now and seeing an IBM techie trying, unsuccessfully to 'open' it. What would we have seen of interest inside anyway - a little grandmaster?

Also, the recent match against Karpov. I no longer follow professional chess enough to know when and where this was. It would have been nice to have been told: was this a one-off 'just for the money'? Was it part of the world championship cycle? What was the final score? The nub of the film was the play in game two. Could/would IBM let Kasparov see 'inside' the machine? That's where the focus should have been.

Great story, slightly overplayed

[paul2001sw-1 · 8/10 · 31 May 2005]

When Garry Kasparov, the world chess champion, lost to a computer in 1997 it certainly seemed as if a landmark in artificial intelligence had been passed. But Kasparov did not lose gracefully, and while I am tempted to doubt his suspicions that IBM (who made the machine) actually cheated (surely they had too much to lose if found out), it certainly appears their team relied on that oldest of chess tactics, the mind game, to discomfit their opponent. The story is so innately fascinating that 'Game Over' is almost inevitably an interesting documentary; and the film-makers have also secured access to all the most important participants, Karsparov himself included. But the film is slightly spoilt by endless arty shots that distract from the story, and slightly pointless reconstructions (e.g. Kasparov revisiting the bland skyscraper where the match was fought). With a lesser subject, one might have grown tired of such banal trickery. But the magnetic appeal of the tale cannot be smothered; and, as IBM refused a rematch, some in the chess community still denies their ultimate victory. But, as a friend of mine puts it, chess has essentially been "solved". Time to turn to the even more complex oriental game of Go, perhaps, which for the moment computers still can't play.

interesting editorial!

[C_Hood · 7/10 · 2 March 2006]

a convincingly slanted take on the events surrounding deep blue vs kasparov.

well put together and presented (except the whispery narration).

many negative reactions on here, but they seem to be based on expectations that the film would be something its not. sort of silly to blast a movie for that, but hey.

certainly an editorial rather than a documentary. pretty even handed, but ultimately agenda driven.

not that that is a bad thing by any means. leave your expectations at the door, and just accept it for what it is.

pointless conspiracy theory

[ergundel · 5/10 · 4 January 2005]

I'm not sure who this movie is targeting. There are interesting tidbits concerning the history of the challenge to make a chess machine. These might intrigue both chess fans and non-fans alike, though much more could be made of this, as the history is richer than even this film implies. More could also be made of the history between Kasparov and his arch-rival Karpov (two almost perfectly matched players, though you'd never guess from this movie). More could be made about the connection between chess champions and paranoia, or between chess and politics in the USSR (a connection which makes one understand better why chess players are so paranoid).

Instead, the makers of this film push the silly idea that IBM's Deep Blue beat Kasparov in '97 because of human intervention (ie, IBM cheated). The film bases this on one piece of evidence: Kasparov believes his loss in game two of the match was the result of a move that no computer would ever make. This is made all the sillier because a typical home chess program (Fritz 7) makes the very same move as Deep Blue after only a moment's thought. The film also claims that IBM never released the logs of Deep Blue's analysis after the game (just go to IBM's historical site concerning this match, and you will see this is not accurate).

Are documentaries getting lazier with their facts, or am I just finally wising up after years of taking them at their word?

Spoilt somewhat by a heavy conspiratorial agenda and tone but is still an interesting story and an enjoyable documentary

[bob the moo · 23 August 2004]

In 1997, one of the world's greatest chess players, Garry Kasparov played a match against an IBM machine called Deep Blue. After easily winning the first game of six, Kasparov is astonished when, in game two, the computer refuses to take a trap that he has set – a trap that commonly sees computers fall. With his composure lost, he concedes the game to Deep Blue. However, Kasparov insisted that the computer was being backed up by a human player – helping it spot the mistakes that computer logic would make. In this film he recalls the games and tries to back up his claims.

For those of us who remember this tournament between man and machine, this is a fascinating film for the chance to find out more about the specifics of the match. At the time I was only vaguely aware that the games were taking place and was certainly not aware of the sheer amount of controversy that seems to have surrounded the games. The film starts very badly and shows its main weakness immediately by setting up an absurdly conspiratorial tone that it happily tones down later. The whispery narration and the use of sinister music at key moments seems to be pushing the idea that IBM did it all to ensure victory and boost stock prices in the world market. This is all fine and good but I would have greatly preferred if the film had let me draw my own conclusions rather than pushing this idea as the only show in town.

Aside from this the film does well by allowing each side to speak for themselves as well as showing footage from the matches and it is difficult not to feel that the matches were not totally as clean an experiment as they were billed. However the film never answers all the questions that well and I doubt it will ever be clear but it is still very interesting. The chance to hear all those involved speak is good and Kasparov makes for a very human subject and it is easy to feel for him as he relates how increasingly difficult the whole affair was for him. In contrast the IBM guys do come across as rather distant, with some just not providing any real answers – particularly about why the project was taken away after the game and not followed up – like one commentator says 'it's like going to the moon but just coming back without exploring'. Whether or not it was all a plan to boost stock I don't know but the way everything was handled seems a little suspect and this film highlights that.

When it focuses on the people involved and the facts, the film is very enjoyable and interesting. However, when it goes into X-Files mode and starts seeing monsters in every shadow, it gets a bit tiresome and I couldn't help but wish that it would let me judge for myself rather than forcing its own agenda but happily the subject is interesting enough to overcome the faults of the producers.

A film about Kasparov and Deep Blue that seems objective enough

[siderite · 8/10 · 30 January 2013]

As chess documentary go, this one is pretty good, even if far from being unbiased. Rather, it is biased both ways, trying to show both sides of the story, but throwing in enough innuendo to make it all seem either a terrible corporate conspiracy or an obstinate refusal to accept defeat from Garry Kasparov. Riddled with scenes from the 1927 film "Le joueur d'échecs", about The Turk, the wondrous mechanical chess player that turned out to be human operated, it doesn't take much to know which direction the film leaned towards.

But if you ignore the dramatization, the film is quite filled with interesting information. It is great to see Kasparov explain how the computer strategy is different from a human player's and how the exponential nature of the calculations don't render themselves well to following a long term plan.

What I didn't like is that it is not so much about chess itself. The games are not shown, no moves, no knowledge of the game is required in order to watch it. But, as documentaries go, this one was above average and I have to recognize it as such.

Man Vs. The Machine and All the Drama

[Screen_O_Genic · 8/10 · 17 December 2021]

In 1997 world Chess champion Garry Kasparov squared-off once again with Deep Blue, then regarded as the most highly advanced computer program in the world. In the previous year Kasparov had beaten the machine and another one prior to it so the champ was confident. With a lot of hoopla and buzz the event was heralded as "Man Vs. The Machine", "The fate of human intelligence is on the line", etc.. Held in New York City Kasparov faced not only Deep Blue but a group of IBM's (the creator of Deep Blue) top programmers and Chess masters who were behind the creation of the machine. Game I went swimmingly well for Kasparov as he brushed aside the machine with ease. When he lost the following game and then the match that's when the whole controversy started. "Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine" depicts in detail the drama that unfolded taking the viewer to the sights and sounds of the event with interviews of Kasparov, Deep Blue's team, Chess masters and other individuals associated with the match. I have the nagging suspicion that the whole scene was concocted, planned out by Kasparov and IBM to bolster IBM's sales and status. Videos of a supposedly frustrated Kasparov in the early parts of the games which IBM used in its ads and Kasparov losing the final game of the match and the match itself after the score being a tie smacks too much of a Hollywood plot to be a coincidence. The result was as expected: sales of IBM soared and the company's status higher than ever. One can say the people involved looked too genuine for the whole scenario to be faked but I guess being paid a hefty amount can make anyone a good actor. Serious and sober with a dark underlying vibe, this is an interesting glimpse into Chess, business, and the fragility of ethics and fair play when such factors are involved. A compelling documentary which should appeal not to just Chess enthusiasts but to a broad viewership as well.

Interesting, but altogether too biased.

[rynthetyn · 1/10 · 24 January 2004]

What Game Over: Kasparov and the Machine does best is to delve into Garry Kasparov's psyche during the 1997 competition against IBM's Deep Blue. You see him becoming more and more paranoid, and increasingly unravelled, all because in the second game, Deep Blue made a move that seemed too human for his preconceived notion of chess computers. Kasparov thought then, and still does, that IBM cheated.

Game Over tries to seem unbiased, but it is clear that the director thinks that IBM cheated. However, they give no real evidence to support the cheating claim, only intimations that IBM's security surrounding the computer room was because IBM really had grandmasters hidden in there overriding the computer on certain key occasions, and Kasparov's assertion that the computer didn't play like a computer usually does at one point in game two. In game two, Kasparov played a game that was designed to trick the computer, attempting to sacrifice a pawn in a situation where previous computer chess programs would have taken the pawn, leading to the computer's eventual loss. Deep Blue didn't take the bait, and Kasparov was so rattled because the computer seemed to play like a human that he didn't even see that he could have played Deep Blue to a draw and ended up resigning. That game psyched him out so much that he was unable to recover, and after playing games 3,4, and 5 to draws, lost game 6 horribly.

The question of whether IBM cheated all comes down to that single move in game two, where the Deep Blue made the move that any human would make but that had, up to that point, tripped up computers. Joel Benjamin, a chess grandmaster on IBM's programming team explained in the documentary that they knew that chess computers always got tripped up in that situation, and consequently spent a lot of time and effort programming Deep Blue so that it wouldn't make the mistake that other computers do. If you believe Benjamin's assertion, then the case is clear, IBM did not cheat. Unfortunately, the director quickly moved on and never mentioned IBM's explanation for the rest of the movie, preferring to cut between shots of the chess playing hoax of the 19th century, The Turk, and shots of Deep Blue, hinting that Deep Blue was really controlled by a human as well. As someone who has an understanding of programming, the explanation by IBM makes perfect sense--if you knew what you were doing, it would not be terribly difficult to put something in the code so that, if thus and so conditions are reached, then do thus and so--in other words, tell the computer what to do if a situation like the one that Kasparov created in game 2 ever happened. This isn't cheating, it's doing a good job of programming a chess computer.

In the end, it's eminently clear that the director thinks that IBM cheated, and the repeated comments about IBM's stock rising 15% the day that Deep Blue won suggest the idea that IBM cheated to pump its stock price (Kasparov even compares IBM and Deep Blue to Enron). However, there is plenty of outside opinion, within both the chess and computer science communities, that Deep Blue won fair and square and that Kasparov lost because he simply couldn't get past his view of computers as "dumb machines" and got psyched out by a machine that didn't seem so dumb after all. I just wish that the director had let us see the alternative opinion.

Rage Against the Machine

[Galina_movie_fan · 5/10 · 22 December 2005]

In the May 1997, Gary Kasparov, the reigning Chess World Champion and by the opinion of many, the greatest chess player ever played Deep Blue, an IMB Supercomputer. At its best scenes, the film is an entertaining look at the never ending competition of human intellect against artificial. The greatest player on Earth does not like and does not know how to lose, and his account of the match and its result is quite bitter. He can't believe that the computer program, the combination of 0s and 1s may appear to think like a human. It was sad and nostalgic for me to see Gary like that. I remember him back in 1985, 22 years old World Champion after his victorious match with Anatoly Karpov. In his (and former mine) country millions of people that knew nothing or next to nothing about ancient game of chess (All I know that the first move e2 – e4 will not bring me any problems, at least for a little while) passionately wished him to win. Gary was not just a brilliant chess genius, a wonder-boy – he was also a symbol of hope, of changes not only in the chess politics but in the life of the whole country that was ready for changes.

Kasparov may have lost, but IBM surely could've cheated as well...

[al666940-3 · 21 December 2004]

I saw the documentary, and saw the actual games in 1997.

Kasparov could surely be a fine actor, since the guy is very expressive and charismatic.

Whenever he felt good and winning, you could see it. And when he was losing and crumbling, you could see it too. Was way obvious. Like the documentary say, Kasparov would be the worst poker player in the world.

Now, did IBM cheat?

Who knows. Anything is possible

Arguments against it: Kasparov could've taken for granted Deep Blue's playing antics as the one of a normal computer, and since IBM had a grandmaster chess player advising the programmers, it's not so wild to conceive that they managed to program Deep Blue to be able to spot traps like the one Kasparov set up that wouldv'e nailed any other computer. And he's a paranoid (coming from the U.R.S.S. no one can blame him), since chess is also psychologic warfare, IBM surely did it's best to psyche out Kasparov and play his paranoid assumptions.

Arguments for it: Kasparov won fist game easy, but lost second when Deep Blue didn't take a bait a compute would've taken. Maybe losing the first game was intended to lower Kasparov's defenses so he would try a play like that, and there Deep Blue would surprise him, psyche him out and steamroll. But that's a human strategy, not a machine's (the computer only knows the game in front of it, doesn't know there are six games total, so it would NEVER sacrifice one to try to surprise Kasparov in the next one).

Also IBM,s attitude, while could be attributed to psyching out Kasparov (fueling his paranoia), looked totally like a cheater's conduct. Also when they won (no rematch, no further research, dismantling of Deep Blue) doesn't look like honest behavior (first truly artificial intelligence? Who would NOT follow through with research?), but like a cheater who won and now has to skip town before he's discovered.

And, the final nail: Why shouldn't IBM cheat? To IBM, it's nothing but a marketing stunt, nothing else. The whole point was not to beat Kasparov or improve artificial intelligence (or they would've continued the work on Deep Blue, published the groundbreaking work, patented programming code, etc), but only to improve stock value and reposition themselves on the market. So why not cheat if necessary? Like a company would be above that (Enron, etc.) or anything for that matter to increase profit.

But since there's no way to verify what Deep Blue did (thanks to IBM, like e-voting paperless machines, "trust us"), we'll never know...

Not enough chess and not good enough melodrama

[petrelet · 3/10 · 23 November 2005]

I'm writing this note as a chess player as well as as a movie viewer. I watched the 1997 Kasparov-Deep Blue games on the Internet. I know something about the issues that were raised. Other chess players will come along and want to know whether this movie is worth seeing/buying, and I'm talking largely to them. However, I'll try not to ignore those who aren't "into chess".

This movie is about the 1997 match between Garry Kasparov and the custom-built computer "Deep Blue". However, the first image you see in the movie is not of Kasparov, or of the computer, but of "THE TURK". This is an "automaton" which was built in Europe at the turn of the 18th-19th century and played winning chess against all comers. I put the word "automaton" in quotes because it was, as everyone now knows, a fake. There was a man inside it.

If you don't like seeing "THE TURK", then you won't be able to stand the movie, because "THE TURK" has as much screen time as Kasparov, maybe more, both in modern footage and in b/w footage from some old movie. The reappearance of "THE TURK" every few seconds underscores Kasparov's charge that "Deep Blue" had human assistance - that it was (to some degree) a fake computer, that IBM cheated, that there was "a man inside it" working behind the scenes to help it win. Not only does Kasparov believe this, but the filmmakers seem to believe it too. And so this is not really much of a movie about chess games or about programming chess computers. It is a propaganda piece about a big corporation supposedly misusing a helpless grandmaster. Really it is a lot like a "negative campaign ad", as it is chock full of ominous music and evocative camera work and spooky sound effects and innuendos ("we never found out what was behind that locked door") and the ever-present "TURK".

Now, most people in the chess community are pretty much convinced that IBM did not cheat and that this was Garry's paranoia at work. To start with, in order for a human to help "Deep Blue" beat Kasparov, it would seem that you would need a human who was better than "Deep Blue" AND better than Kasparov. Since there was no such person, the whole idea is a bit suspect from the start. Furthermore, by the time this movie was made, there were computer programs that could run on your PC that could beat strong grandmasters. Today, much more than in 1997, we take it for granted that a computer can do things you might not expect. And we are less likely to take it as a monumental human tragedy that a computer beat a guy in chess. (And in fact, the bottom line is that Kasparov beat himself with two bad mistakes, including resigning game 2 in a drawn position.)

As for the chess games, you actually see very little of them. There are a few comments from masters and commentators that tell briefly how they went, but really you don't get to see hardly any of the strategy or tactics at all. Naturally as a chess player I take this as a major shortcoming, but I think that non-players are being cheated too. Imagine a baseball movie, for example, where you don't hardly get to see any of the game - just a commentator telling you that "in Game Four, the White Sox defeated the Astros with such and such a score." Nobody would make a movie like that. But here, for example, we are told that Kasparov made a bad blunder in the opening of the decisive game 6, but we aren't shown the position on the screen, or told why it was a blunder, or what he should have done instead, or anything. We just see a few seconds of Kasparov holding his head in his hands, and then more atmospheric sound effects and camera work.

(Since I saw this on DVD, let me warn chess players about the DVD as well. The jacket promises you that the Extras include the games "with analysis". Is this grandmaster analysis, which people like us might find interesting? NO! It is the automated computer voice synthesizer analysis from some version of Chessmaster, that tells you when a piece is attacked and a pawn gets isolated and that you are in the "Caro-Kann Defense, Main Line". Blahhhh.)

Someone might then come along and say, "Well, clearly this movie is meant to dramatize the match for the non-player, and so it's unfair to be impatient with it." But actually it doesn't do a very good job of reaching out to the non-player either - it skates over some points that a true novice would really want to have explained. For example it says that Kasparov could have gotten "perpetual check" in the second game, but it doesn't explain what that is (or show what it would have looked like on the board, which would have been interesting). It flashes back to the Kasparov-Karpov matches but doesn't explain why there were two of them or who organized them etc. I didn't need this information myself, but I'm familiar with it. If you don't already have chess experience, there are places where you are going to be confused, and this is just a defect in the film.

Ultimately I can't recommend the movie, which, like "THE TURK" itself, is not what it purports to be (a documentary) but more of a stage illusion.

The real story had to be more interesting than this!

[Sulaco72 · 3/10 · 20 June 2005]

Kasparov vs. Deep Blue is no doubt a fascinating story, but I don't think you'd know it by watching this movie. I think it focuses too much on the conspiracy theory that IBM cheated...and what does this theory hinge upon? The idea that at one point the computer made a move that "looked human". I am not a chess grandmaster or a computer scientist. And while I don't doubt that the move looked human, to me it doesn't seem beyond the realm of possibility that the most powerful chess-playing computer ever created could make a surprising move...or that such a machine could beat even a genius like Kasparov. The movie gets way too much mileage out of this theory, and not enough out of the personalities of the people involved...that could have made it a much more interesting story. The direction also relies way too much on the conceits of a pointlessly whispered narration, and the imagery of an 18th century chess-playing machine that looks like one of those animatronic gypsy fortunetellers you see at the carnival. Also the story was slowed down by many empty shots of Kasparov revisiting "the scene of the crime". I don't doubt that Kasparov and the chess community found IBM's behavior vexing, but I don't think it's any different than you would find from any other big corporation. At the end of the movie, you are left with the feeling that Kasparov is a huge crybaby and the Deep Blue programmers are either victims or cheats. I think if the filmmaker wanted the viewer to believe the conspiracy theory (which he almost certainly did), he should have presented a lot more evidence. In fact, more evidence would have been a good idea in the first place. The whole thing left me with a sour taste in my mouth.

Stale, Mate?

[Ali_John_Catterall · 7 September 2004]

In 1997 the world of flesh suffered a major body blow when it was announced that chess Grandmaster Gary Kasparov, perhaps the greatest player in the history of the game, had been trounced by a tool shed. A rather advanced variation, granted; IBM's supercomputer Deep Blue – designed especially, it seemed, to tip latent paranoiacs over the edge. Had we genuinely inched that much closer to Jimmy Cameron's dystopian vision of a machine-run planet? Or were there cruder, more political ramifications at work? (i.e. were Deep Blue's programmers a bunch of cheating brigands?). Kasparov, who compared IBM to Enron, and the outcome with Maradona's 'hand of God' goal certainly thinks so and, superficially, the evidence appears compelling: with Apple taking the market lead, IBM were desperate to win at any price, and thus raise their profile. Whatever, it worked; the next day their stock share jumped 15%. IBM refused to allow anyone to inspect Deep Blue or its printouts, and dismantled it as soon as the game was over. But the real controversy centred on Round 2, during which Deep Blue made a risky – and suspiciously 'human' move – having hitherto played with number-crunching logic. Ranged against all this is the fact that Kasparov has an ego the size of the Matterhorn, and more chips on his shoulders than a tree surgeon. For Gary's been here before: in 1985, he claimed the Soviets, who'd looked down on him as an Armenian Jew, had used dirty tricks during his match with their champion Anatoly Karpov… For a documentary about such a cerebral, closeted subject, Game Over progresses like a taut little thriller, ultimately yielding more questions than answers, to leave you wondering long after the credits.

Intriguing Concept Marred By Odd Execution

[zkonedog · 4/10 · 28 February 2017]

I decided to watch this documentary because it describes an event that I was too young (at the time) to appreciate...the first competitive chess match(es) between a human player--Garry Kasparov--and a machine--IBM's Deep Blue. Sadly, this take on the subject plays more like an independent student film or something, providing little substance and even less drama on a subject that could have had both.

The problem with this documentary is that it breaks what is basically the cardinal rule of documentaries: it somehow manages to make its subject even LESS exciting than the events that actually took place. It provides very little context to the events, and even the context it does provide just bogs down the real-life story. I compare this type of documentary to "King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters" (which was vastly better). That doc takes two people playing a video game (not even really against each other) and turns it into an epic drama while delving into the history of the experience. Neither of those approaches show up in "Game Over".

Sadly, this was a very disappointing experience. I had been quite excited to view this documentary, and I could tell right away that is was not going to be the quality that I had expected. I'll give it two stars because the idea/event behind is truly something interesting, but not a cent more. This subject deserves a much more professional treatment, that is for certain.

Inconclusive

[hitchcockkelly · 5/10 · 27 January 2023]

It's an OK story, but since the mystery of whether IBM was cheating is never solved, most of the documentary is about Kasparov's frustration and anguish over losing to a machine. Many good points are made about the IBM team's bizarre behavior and their decision to never grant Kasparov a rematch, but the heart of the movie is Kasparov's angst. It's not fascinating. It would've been interesting to hear one of the programmers explain why Deep Blue played so strangely, but IBM is keeping mum. The problem is that Kasparov is a sportsman and the programmers are scientists. He saw himself as part of a game. They saw him as part of an experiment, a lab rat. If the rat runs the maze the way you want it to, the experiment is over. IBM had everything to lose and nothing to gain by giving Kasparov a rematch. Ultimately, that's the point of the movie, but it's not a very strong one.