The Good
- A unique look at a rarely seen side of competitive gaming.
- An oddball cast of real life characters who all share a love of classic arcade games.
- Interesting tips and analysis of the art to playing Donkey Kong.
- Walter Day, the historian, song-writer, practitioner of Transcendental Meditation and founder of Twin Galaxies, the first competitive gaming organization. Day is a big enough personality for three documentaries.
- Actually makes watching a guy play the same video game, over and over, for hours on end, both heartwarming and fascinating.
- Filled with lots of extras catered to the nostalgic classic arcade game fans.
The Bad
- Some moments come off as being a one-sided, set up to create a clear hero and villain.
- Not much on classic video games themselves, more about the people who play them.
- The “DVD-ROM and Online Features” is nothing more than links to New Line Cinema and Picturehouse websites.
- A confusing ending that leaves you scratching your head as to what happened.
Features
Two Commentary Tracks:
- The first features the film's director Seth Gordon, Producer Ed Cunningham and the Associate Producers J. Clay Tweel and Luis Lopez taking you behind the scenes of how the film was made and the cast of characters behind it.
- The second track is more of a "Mystery Science Theater 3000" style comedy track for gamers, featuring Chris Carle, IGN’s Entertainment Editorial Director, and John M. Gibson, founder of I Am 8-Bit, the annual gallery show of retro video game inspired art.
- The Really Really Brief History of Donkey Kong, an animated short that does a surprising job of encapsulating the origins of Donkey Kong into 60 seconds.
- A Glossary of arcade terms.
- Bonus footage and extra interviews.
- Disappointing “DVD-ROM and Online Features” that feels more like a trick than bonus content. All it consists of are links to the studio and production companies websites, with nothing on the film.
The Film
Today competitive console gaming is a huge industry, with celebrity gamers who play for huge accolades and paychecks, but it all started with Twin Galaxies, the first organization dedicated to recording video game high scores and broken records. When Twin Galaxies founder Walter Day began recording these high scores back in 1981, it brought arcade battles from local neighborhoods to international recognition. Of all these competitive gamers the one who held the most world record championships was Billy Mitchell, whose confidence and merciless competitive instincts made him known as the “greatest arcade-video-game player of all time”. In the 80s Billy was king of the arcade, being the first ever to gain a perfect score in Pac-Man (3,333,360) and hitting the high score world record in Burgertime, Donkey Kong Jr. and of course Donkey Kong. The problem with being the champion is that there is always someone out there trying to take you down, and by the first few years of the 21st century Billy’s Burgertime and Donkey Kong Jr. records had been beaten.
The guy who actually broke Billy’s Donkey Kong Jr. record, Steve Wiebe, was a newbie to competitive gaming and after getting his first world championship, set his sights on Billy’s final record, Donkey Kong. This was when The King of Kong’s producer Ed Cunningham met Wiebe and became inspired to turn his story into a documentary.
In the film Wiebe symbolizes everything we want in an all-American boy; a former athlete, a loving dad, a high school science teacher with a glowing sense of wide eyed wonder for the world around him. Basically an all around great guy. In person, just like in the film, this all comes through as a 100% genuine, but he does have a killer instinct when it comes to toppling Billy Mitchell’s record regardless of how seemingly innocent of an approach he takes.
The reigning champ Billy Mitchell appears as Wiebe’s total opposite. A wealthy and successful business man, Billy runs his family’s restaurant and hot sauce empire. He appears slick and confident, a bit vane, and never willing to settle for the number two spot in gaming or in life. The film is skued to make this look as though Billy is the bad guy, but like it or not, his qualities are everything America looks for in a champion. No one would cheer for a boxer who doesn’t intimidate his opponent, and any quarterback who isn’t confident he’s going to make the winning touchdown doesn’t belong on the field. Having to defend your title for two and a half decades from every Johnny-come-lately looking to take you down must be a weary task. Only once is his warm side shown when he delivers the gift of a Q-Bert coin-op arcade machine to 80-year-old Doris Self, the world’s oldest competitive gamer, who seeks to reclaim the Q-Bert high score world record that she lost in 1985.
