MOVIE REVIEW - "King Of Kong" will delight even non-video game fans
THE KING OF KONG - A FIST FULL OF QUARTERS
RATED PG-13
DIRECTOR: SETH GORDON
FEATURING: STEVE WIEBE, BILLY MITCHELL, WALTER DAY, STEVE SANDERS, DORIS SELF, BRIAN KUH, ROY SCHILDT
If you had told me a year ago that a movie about obsessed video game players would become a hit film, I would have laughed in your face. And I would have been wrong.
The King Of Kong: A Fistful Of Quarters tells the story of Billy Mitchell, who set a world record high score in Donkey Kong in 1982, and of Steve Wiebe, a Redmond, Washington father of two who, while laid off from his job at Boeing, set out to break that record.
And what a story it is.
Filmmaker Seth Gordon follows both sides of what happened when Steve Wiebe sent his videotape of his record-breaking game to Twin Galaxies, one of the official video game record keepers. And how his life has been topsy-turvy ever since.
Because Twin Galaxies recieved hundreds of video tapes each year - and because Mitchell is one of their top players - they sent a team to Wiebe's home in Redmond, and while he wasn't home, began taking apart his Donkey Kong machine, especially when they found a box addressed to Steve from one Roy "Mr. Awesome" Shildt, a California-based "Missile Command" player with whom Mitchell has had an intense rivalry, and with whom Twin Galaxies and its owner and chief official, Walter Day, has also had problems with. Because of this, Wiebe's attempt becomes suspect, and his top score is rejected. He is, however, invited to come to a New Hampshire arcade to try for the top score in person.
When Wiebe shocks them by taking them up on the offer and arrives at Funspot Arcade in the classic arcade video gaming mecca of Wiers, New Hampshire (!), Mitchell's posse is waiting for him and do everything they can to distract him, and it immediately becomes clear that most of Twin Galaxies upper staff is also wishing Wiebe would just go away. The worse of these videogaming nerds is Brian Koh, a longtime Mitchell protege who regularly telephones Mitchell at his Hollywood, Florida home with score updates, as another one of Gordon's cameras catches Mitchell's smug reactions.
Another competitor at this particular weekend's events is another Hollywood Florida native, Doris Self, who has travelled to New Hampshire to try and break the world record on Q-Bert. And she has brought with her a video tape of her mentor Mitchell scoring over a million points on Donkey Kong. And she shows it to the Twin Galaxies gang just after Wiebe successfully breaks Mitchell's long standing record on the game. So Wiebe, after being the world champion for only an hour or so, is once again relegated to second place, despite the questionable quality of the videotape - since Twin Galaxies refused to acknowledge Wiebe's videotaped record-breaking game, it is surprising to him that Hill accepts the tape almost without question after a brief phone call to Mitchell. And Steve is rightfully upset that they won't even let him see the tape. So it's back to square one.
The movie plays Mitchell and his posse - Kuh, Steve Sanders, and even Twin Galaxies official Walter Hill - as the bad guys, with Steve Wiebe cast as the would be-David who takes on the video game Goliath. Or more accurately, because Kuh and Sanders so blatently bow to the every whim of Mitchell, they come off more as Draco Malfoy and his cronies, and Wiebe the would-be video gamer version of Harry Potter.
Later, Wiebe heads to Mitchell's backyard of Hollywood Florida for the Guinness World Records weekend of video gaming, but Mitchell won't give him the time of day, and even when Mitchell and his wife show up at the arcade where the gaming is going on, all he does is remark how he wouldn't give some people the time of day. Of course, it's not lost on the viewer that he's standing almost directly behind Steve Wiebe at the time, who is very obviously upset by the remark.
The King Of Kong is an intensely interesting, and often hilarious, profile of obsessive videogamers and their love for their chosen "sport". It's also an interesting case study of a group of sycophants that are so enamoured with one person that they would do anything for that person, even at the risk of looking like a total moron.
And the rivalry portrayed in the film continues...Steve Wiebe recently tried to break Mitchell's record yet again, this time at a gaming weekend held at the legendary Austin Draft House in Texas. And several more attempts have been recorded since the movie ended filming. A quick look at the Twin Galaxies websites' news area continues to prove Billy Mitchell's continuing influence on the "Offical Electronic Scoreboard" and Walter Hill's seeming willingness to continue to accept questionable results when it comes to offical scores.
Are these people REALLY this way? Well, it's a documentary. Somehow I have a feeling Mitchell and his cronies aren't REALLY that bad..., and so the filmmakers viewpoint is what matters, but it DOES make good theater, doesn't it? No hard feelings, guys...but you really DO come off looking like a bunch of self-involved jerks willing to do anything - including playing dirty - to keep Mitchell on top.
A quick aside to director Gordon and his team if I may. They are now developing The King Of Kong into a feature film, and have said they would love to see Johnny Depp play Mitchell and Greg Kinnear play Wiebe. That's fine, guys, but if I were you, instead of Depp, who I personally think isn't quite right for the part, it might be worth your time to search out a young actor named Craig Hurley. Hurley, a longtime character actor, actually bears an uncanny physical resemblence to Mitchell, and I'll bet you with the beard you'd have a dead ringer. Not to mention that Hurley is a top-notch thespian with a long resume. I think that in the long run, your movie would be for the better for it.
Now, with that out of the way...where's my Pac-Man game? I have some records to break...
MY SCORE: 4.5 (out of five)
On the Web:
The King Of Kong - Official WebSite
Twin Galaxies - official website
