The King of Kong tells the tale of Billy and Steve, the two greatest Donkey Kong players in the world. I'm not sure how seriously I'm supposed to take this, particularly Billy's over the top arrogance (we see him referring to himself in the third person and saying how controversy surrounds everything he says, much like the abortion issue). I love the retro 80s look of the trailer, and all those classic arcade games remind me of the many misspent quarters of my misspent youth.
This looks like a fascinating glimpse into an ultra-geeky subculture. Here's Scott Weinberg's review of the film, and you can have a look at the trailer here: A bald dude has a bar code on the back of his head and a pair of guns he's not afraid to use. I didn't realize going in that is based on a series of video games, but I correctly assumed so just by watching the trailer.
I guess it has that style over substance look. Things explode, there's a sultry woman in a red dress and an insignia gets tossed around so many times I got the impression that I was supposed to recognize it, and I'm sure those who have played the games will. What's it about?
Who knows. I've yet to see a truly great movie based on a video game (the first was OK), though I suspect this will be a cool looking movie at the very least. Might be worth a look, but I'll need to know more.
Here's Scott's take on it. Video technology has, of course, changed the way the average person sees war, which is one of the themes of this Richard Gere vehicle. Gere and Terrance Howard respectively play a journalist and cameraman who go looking for a man known as The Fox, who is the most wanted war criminal in all of Bosnia.
Their idea is to score an interview, but their intentions are misinterpreted and the situation gets very dangerous indeed. There's talk of CIA conspiracies, and when Gere's character tells his colleagues to "trust nobody," I felt for a moment that he was channeling David Duchovny. Based on true events, this looks to be an interesting slice of international intrigue.
News RSS