YMMV / The King of Kong

• Awesome Music: The film has some pretty great needle drops, including "Pictures of You" by The Cure and "Everybody Knows" by Leonard Cohen.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The fact that the movie goes to great lengths to make Billy out to be an ominous, duplicitous antagonist with blatantly-dubious methods of maintaining his high score lead even despite all of Steve's efforts was viewed as heavy-handed at best by the gaming community at the time of the film's release. Some ten years later both Mitchell and Day, co-owners of Twin Galaxies at the time, were outed as having been part of an organized conspiracy to elevate Mitchell's status as an elite gamer, having faked all of his high scores and legend as an elite gamer the entire time.
• Memetic Loser: Ever since Billy Mitchell was revealed to have actually cheated, he has been this.
• Memetic Mutation: "There is a Donkey Kong Kill Screen coming up, if anyone is interested."^ExplanationBrian Kuh's announcement of Wiebe approaching the notorious "level 22" kill screen, made to various patrons at Funspot where Wiebe attempts the record.
• Narm Charm: The movie is filled to the brim with socially awkward people gushing about their love of retrogaming, a very nerdy topic. But everyone is so sincere about it, you can't help but be charmed.
• Retroactive Recognition: This was the first film directed by Seth Gordon, who went on to direct Horrible Bosses and Baywatch (2017), as well as being an executive producer on The Goldbergs.
• Unintentional Period Piece:
  • Became this after it was revealed that multiple of Mitchell's scores were fake in 2018, resulting in his scores being removed from consideration and him being banned from competing on the Twin Galaxies leaderboards ever again. Later evidence went even further as Twin Galaxies later sued Mitchell, accusing Mitchell and Walter Day, co-owners of the older iteration of Twin Galaxies, completely fabricating Mitchell's persona as an elite gamer, and provides extensive evidence that Mitchell never came close to holding any sort of high score in any game, instead relying on manipulation and connections to disqualify anything that could pass him.
  • A lot of the technology on display has also become quite dated. Characters use flip phones, and competitors for video game high scores record their games on VHS tapes and mail them in for verification, as opposed to uploading or streaming them on sites like YouTube or Twitch.
  • On a lesser note, other players have long since surpassed both Wiebe's and Mitchell's scores, with Wiebe's best record now having dropped out of the top ten in the overall leaderboard.
• The Woobie: Steve Wiebe is an everyman for whom Donkey Kong is a hobby and an outlet for his analytical mind. But as he begins making a serious run for the Donkey Kong world record, he finds himself being stymied and vilified by Billy Mitchell and the retrogaming establishment in spite of his pure intentions.

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