Title: The King of Kong Movie Review
Genre: Dorkumentary
Director: Seth Gordon
Release: (2007)
It’s a popular bit of American folk wisdom that twenty years after high school is over, the roles that governed your youth will be entirely reversed. The popular, good-looking jock will have turned out to be a morbidly obese hotel doorman, while the geek that he used to make fun of will return as the rich and successful ladies man who really blossomed after college. It’s that secular twist on “the meek shall inherit the earth” that so many high school nerds take comfort in believing. Well … if you are one of those zitty dreamers, you may want to cover your eyes for a minute (or just take off your Hubble telescope glasses and let your genetically inferior eyeballs take over). The truth is that only sometimes do the mighty fall, only sometimes do the meek rise up, and only on very, very, very rare occasions do pale, sickly, uncoordinated Asthmatics miraculously sprout six inches in height and develop previously unforeseeable shoulder muscles in their mid- to late-twenties. And while most of us are gradually pulled towards the middle of the pecking order, there are in fact outliers on both ends of the spectrum which will always exist: the gifted, good-looking, darling of human evolution who continues to skate through life getting richer and happier with every break that goes his way, and the semi-handicapped schmuck being kept alive on a day-to-day basis with a complex battery of nasal sprays and eczema creams who never seems to catch a break and dies leaving behind nothing but a trail of uninspired message board posts on a Doctor Who fan fiction website.
I guess what I’m saying is, sometimes dorks don’t grow out of it. Case in point are the subjects of Seth Gordon’s 2007 documentary, The King of Kong. In it, Gordon takes us behind the scenes and into the ultra insular (not that anyone’s really clamoring to get in) world of competitive arcade gaming. Inside this world, a handful of uber-dweebs battle amongst themselves for world record high scores on games like Q-bert and Centipede and, yes, as the title alludes to, Donkey Kong. At the top of the Donkey Kong rankings are two very different kinds of losers named Billy Mitchell and Steve Wiebe, and the majority of the movie is spent following the twists and turns as these two ladykillers battle back and forth for the coveted world Donkey Kong high score. Mitchell, who fancies himself some kind of God in this world of last-picked-for-everythings, has held the record for decades now and begins to become a little unglued at the threat of (and I use this term very relatively) up-and-coming sensation Wiebe.
Whether it’s a reflection of the truth or just director Gordon’s biases, it is undeniable that one of these two future arthritics comes across as the more genuine and sympathetic figure, while the other is revealed to be a manipulative, passive-aggressive jackass who you wouldn’t mind seeing a real gorilla throw barrels at to death. Because of this dynamic, the film actually does present a degree of compelling drama that will keep you interested in following. Now, that degree of drama is nowhere near as compelling as the motley crew of dateless wonders who make up the supporting cast of this film would have you believe it is as they try desperately to justify their lives for the camera in every interview, but it is at least compelling enough to justify paying attention to for an hour and a half sometime when you have nowhere else to be and nothing else to do. Like these guys always have.
Grading Story: N/A
Acting: N/A
Visuals: N/A
Originality/Innovation: B
Enjoyability: B Overall: B
