Plot
King of Kong
One man, one arcade cabinet, one lonely guy who has never
seen the other gender before. He seeks that what has never been seen before.
No, not a vagina, but a high score of Donkey Kong. In the 1980s, Billy Mitchell
achieved the feat of feats, the greatest score ever in Donkey Kong. Many said
it could never be beat, as many had tried. Until one man who was laid off in
the early 2000s had too much time on his hands, and took a shot…
And he’s still a loser…
Summary
I heard about this movie because a show on Sirius XM made
fun of it so much, but at the same time described it as “something you have to
see”. How is that possible? Such a shit show that is so terrible no one takes
it serious, but something you can’t miss? There is no such a thing.
O…there is…
Let’s get down to it right away. Billy Mitchell. If you
could describe this guy that would make sense to the non-video game player, you
would say he’s the Al Pacino of players. Someone that if you met outside of his
craft, you’d describe as the weirdest fucking guy you’d ever met. Who wears
sunglasses 24/7? Why does he always talk like he smokes a pack a cigarettes a
day but stopped smoking 20 years ago? What a creep! But if you knew him for
what he did you’d say “O, that’s Pacino. He’s a Genius. Have you seen The
Godfather? Yea, so shut up!” So this “Pacino” esque player sets the highest
score of Donkey Kong anyone has ever seen. Not years down the line, but when it
came out in 1982!It was amazing in its time. No one ever came close to it, and
never did for years on years….
Until one guy got laid off from his job and was really….really……bored.
Have you ever been laid off from a job? I have. It’s one of
the most unknown situations you can be in. One day you have a 9-5 situation,
the next day you wake up going, “sooooooooo, anyone wanna hang out?” Well Steve
Wiebe had that, and he decided to start playing the arcade game Donkey Kong. He
bought the actual arcade game and installed it in his garage; played for hours…..days…..months…..years
on end to finally set the highest score. And that’s when the movie takes off.
Review
Honestly, this documentary gave me more knowledge than any
other documentary I’ve ever seen. I grew up pumping quarters into machines to
play whenever I could. It was part of my blood. I had NES, SNES, N64, Xbox, and
now an Xbox One. My life was video game driven. I recently went to an arcade
bar in DC and they had the infamous Donkey Kong. I thought, “FUCK this, it’s
simple! Jump the barrels, climb the ladders.” I pumped at least 3 dollars into
the game and didn’t get passed the first level!
I’m dancing around talking about this movie because it can’t
be described. In short, you have a guy who is known as “The King of Kong”. No,
I’m not fucking with you. Billy Mitchell, the human cesspool of Florida, somehow
set the highest score ever of one of the earliest Arcade Games I know of. Trust
me, he never lets you forget about it either. So, years go by. I MEAN Years,
like 20. And some laid off guy, who is super nice and awesome, decides “you
know what, I’m going to break this record”. And you’re like “Yea, please do,
because that guy who hasn’t gotten his hair cut since he beat the game, nor
decided his style of clothes changed 20 years ago, is still in charge of all
the other people who haven’t seen a vagina since they came out of one”. If you
think I burned some bridges in the arcade community by saying that, you have no
idea what happened to poor Steve.
Now, Steve is the greatest guy you can root for. He gets
laid off and decides “hey, you know what, I’d like to beat a record”. He’s so
nice about it you’d think he’s Canadian. Well, he’s not, but damn close to it
being in Seattle. So, he gets laid off and decides to go after the Donkey Kong
record. Listen, I know this means nothing to anyone but in reality it is one of
the hardest records ever! No one had come close to this record. So, he decides
to buy a cabinet and set it up in his garage. Everyday this unemployed guy, who
has a wife and a couple of kids, goes out in his garage and plays Donkey Kong.
EVERYDAY! Tim and Pete, my brothers who are reading this now and have a few kids,
can you FUCKING IMAGINE your wives just “putting up” with your hobby of playing
a video game? Not even playing it, but BUYING THE FUCKING CABINET AND TAKING
CARE OF THE KIDS WHILE YOU PLAY THIS ONE AND ONLY VIDEO GAME!!! That’s what
this guy does every day he’s unemployed! And, it gets better because his KID
ALMOST RUINS THE HIGHEST SCORE EVER SET!
Have I enticed you for this movie yet? Good, because I haven’t
explained the 1 on 1 discussion, the stand off, the high stakes arcade play,
and more. Everything I just said takes places in the first ¼ of the movie J
Enjoy…
