Wouldn't Classify it as a Checkmate, More of a Stalemate

Rating: 8/10 (23 December 2015)

I'll start out with one thing that kept nagging at me as I watched the movie - Tobey Maguire. Now, I like Tobey and I think he's fine. I do however think he was miscast here. Fischer was a fairly big man - lanky, well over 6ft tall, and from what I've read of him, his personality seemed bigger than what Tobey portrayed. Now, that being said, I did like the movie and apart from the peripheral story line, I think the Reykjavik showdown was well done and mostly accurate. I felt that Liev did a fine job playing Spassky. I did think that the end should have been somewhat different. Instead of just jumping right to his paranoid slide into dementia, they could have explained better how he dropped out and forfeited the title to Karpov and the circumstances surrounding that. However, if you're interested in seeing a well done movie, this is worth a watch. You can then investigate further if there were omissions or false narratives, as others have opined.