Review of The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters (2007) by Alex H — 11 Jun 2009

So I finally had a chance to see this. And I have to say it's easily one of my favorite movies ever.

Let's get beyond the obvious part. It's about video games. Specifically, it's about Donkey Kong. I love video games, especially Nintendo. So you can imagine that the premise of two men competing over a Nintendo game was in and of itself enough to ensnare me. And it did.

But the movie itself also surprised me. I was expecting this to be a comedy...and in a way, it still mostly was. But not in the "Ha ha he made a joke" or "Ha ha pie to the face" thing. This was mostly funny because "Ha ha Oh good Lord they're taking this so seriously...It's FREAKING DONKEY KONG.".

But what really caught me off guard was the (as the creators put it) David and Goliath story that ultimately emerged from this. And it was really very moving. It went beyond the reach of "Well, this is just a bunch of forty year olds playing a 20 year old game" into "This is one guy trying to make himself a winner at something and a bunch of other guys who are going out of their way to see he doesn't.".

And even though the topic in question will obviously appeal to the nerdy/gamer crowd more...the story in general is something that I imagine we can all relate to. And because it's such a universal story I highly recommend this movie to just about anyone.

...And hey, if you think it's a dumb movie, you can still laugh at all the nerds.

HA HAAAA...degregation.