There's nothing about this photo that isn't awesome
First of all, I don’t believe this movie accurately portrays much of anything outside of Steve Wiebe’s home life, which should probably be considered a problem for a documentary. There’s probably a lot of truth in Steve and his family’s struggle with the culture of competitive old-school gaming, though. As a one-man character study, it provides a little insight into an interesting time in the life of the Wiebe family. As a total documentary, it gets a little sketchy…
And that’s what makes it great.
Billy Mitchell is an amazing cinematic creation. Whether he’s real or not doesn’t really matter — every word that comes out of his overbearded mouth sounds like it came from a Hollywood script. He’s a classic villain, a situation made even better by the fact that he seems to think that he’s the hero. Everything about him is manufactured to almost Lady Gaga-esque levels — the long hair, the beard, the glamorous wife, the impeccable casual clothes, the rock-star status, the army of henchmen who seem to worship him, the svengali-like hold he seems to have on gaming authorities, his successful wing sauce business — but since it’s manufactured in the world of competitive video game playing, everything is a bit off. His look is ridiculous enough to qualify as a potential halloween costume; his wife is a trophy, but not particularly pretty; his henchmen all seem unaware of any life outside of nerdy pursuits; his main achievements, the video game records, mean absolutely nothing to anyone outside the Gaming Inner Circle; and nobody has ever heard of his apparently regionally popular wing sauce. To put it bluntly, he’s a zilch, and this makes his willingness to spout Donald Trump-y life lessons and platitudes endlessly hilarious. What’s more funny is that he’s somehow acquired these henchmen, who think this larger-than-life gaming persona of Billy’s is something to be admired.
But like I said, I don’t know how much of Billy Mitchell, his henchmen, the video game judges, and the situations depicted in The King of Kong are real. If any of it outside of Steve Wiebe weren’t staged, then the filmmaker stumbled into a truly amazing true story. Either way, Mr. Wiebe’s quest against the evil scheming monolith that is Billy Mitchell has lots of exciting twists and turns and a cast of unforgettable characters. And that’s all you can ask for in this era of The Hills and Survivor, isn’t it?
Four out of five overpriced popcorns, because while it felt a little fake, I’ll never forget Billy Mitchell and his well-conditioned hair.
P.S. — Don’t think I didn’t notice that one of Billy’s blonde-haired henchmen was named Steve Sanders. Man, there’s so much great stuff in this movie. I didn’t even mention Mitchell’s old “nemesis,” a man who recorded (what seemed to be) self-help dating videos as “Mr. Awesome.” The big dispute they had was over Mr. Awesome’s record score on the crappy 80′s game “Missile Command,” of all things. You can’t make this stuff up — or can you?
Edited to provide this link from the Onion’s awesome AV Club, wherein Billy Mitchell calls them to set the record straight. Then the AV Club followed up with the filmmakers about Mitchell’s accusations. This movie/story keeps getting more awesome.
