DVD Review: King of Kong!
Ok, this is a review and a half. Let me just get Across the Universe out the way, first. There’s really a lot I could say about this movie, mostly not positive (although some scenes were particular beautiful or cool), but it pretty much all stems from one root problem. It’s really, really hard to make a musical, especially a big budget musical without any sense that what you are making is at least on some level, absurd. Across the Universe just took itself so, so, soooo seriously. I’m just saying. (just for the record, I saw this against my will…)
But moving along, I finally saw King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters. The summary? Totally great. You might not think that a documentary about the two top Donkey Kong players would be overly gripping (I mean, I always thought it would be but I can see why someone might not think that), but you’d be wrong. While it has a somewhat slow start, if you stick with it, it really becomes a great story on the motivations and personalities behind these two game players. Even Maria who was skeptical of the whole thing was fully engrossed in the movie and invested in the players by the end.
It’s a small story - following primarily the trials and tribulations of Steve Wiebe the contender for the title of world’s best Donkey Kong player, a title held (at the time) by Billy Mitchell. The background of Donkey Kong and the old school competitive gaming world provide interesting texture but the focus really is on what’s driving these two guys to do what they do and how each deals with success and failure. And if you didn’t love that old lady gunning for the Q-bert title… well, you’re a heartless bastard, aren’t you?
It’s funny, finding those two links for those two guys shows that the title is still hotly contested between these two! And I guess it isn’t really all that surprising that no one new has stepped into that particular ring. :) But if you haven’t seen it already, add it to your netflix queue and if you did, what’d you think?
