Rolling Stone
3 stars out of 4 -- "[N]ot only roaringly funny...[but] a metaphor for the decline of Western civilization..." 08/23/2007 p.78Entertainment Weekly
"[A] funny and madly arresting new documentary..." -- Grade: A 08/24/2007 Box Office
"[E]ntertaining....THE KING OF KONG becomes a gripping, you-are-there chronicle of a sports challenge in which a malevolent insider is pitted against a good-guy interloper." 09/01/2007 p.111-112 New York Times
"[T]he movie's ROCKY formula proves irresistible..." 08/17/2007 p.E6 Los Angeles Times
"[A] sprightly new documentary that's as compulsively watchable as the vintage video game it focuses on is addictive." 08/17/2007 Ultimate DVD
5 stars out of 5 -- "[A] touching, riveting and hilarious story. KING OF KONG is the rare result of a real-life drama managing to unfold on screen -- the perfect documentary." 04/01/2008 p.88 Empire
4 stars out of 5 -- "This is ROCKY for gameheads -- a tale of one man's struggle to go the distance and beat the odds..." 07/01/2008 p.162 Sight and Sound
"The reason KING OF KONG is compelling viewing is that its protagonists take their 'sport' with the utmost seriousness....You can't help but be drawn in by the sheer obsessiveness of Gordon's subjects." 08/01/2008 68 Variety 9 of 10
Rumor has it that "The King of Kong," Seth Gordon's wildly entertaining docu about warring "Donkey Kong" champions, already picked up by Picturehouse for an Aug. 17 release, will be made into a mainstream feature. But Hollywood may find it difficult to cast two big-name stars willing to play it as broadly as the real-life hero and villain of this tale. Nor would many self-respecting scriptwriters dare to match the sheer improbability of these actual happenings...What follows is an intricate tale of intrigues, tourneys, minions and fools that would put a Renaissance court to shame: Acolytes scramble, factions realign, legends totter and history is written and rewritten by a folk-singing referee...Perhaps the most glorious aspect of "King of Kong" is the fact that just when it becomes obvious the filmmakers are manipulating the footage to make their hero look more heroic and their villain more Machiavellian, reality does them one better. - Ronnie Scheib
Reel.com 9 of 10
Conspiracy theories, festering grudges, intense rivalries-who knew that the highly competitive and socially challenged world of classic video gamers was so fraught with melodrama? At least that's the impression left by Seth Gordon's terrifically entertaining documentary The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, his seriocomic account of two middle-aged gamers going mano y mano to set the Guinness World Record on that arcade golden oldie, Donkey Kong. Both acerbically funny and deeply sympathetic, Gordon's smartly observed chronicle of the gamers' rivalry unfolds like a real-life cross between a Christopher Guest mockumentary and a classic, Frank Capra underdog story...An audience favorite on the film festival circuit, The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters is a laugh-out-loud funny and rousing documentary that's far more compelling than the would-be summer blockbusters crowding the multiplex. - Tim Knight
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