Ecstasy of Order: The Tetris Masters - 9/10: When I was a little kid I destroyed my left thumb playing Tetris for hours on my friends Gameboy. About ten minutes into Ecstasy of Order I saw Harry Hong playing with a t-shirt wrapped around his thumb and realized these guys, and gals, were way out of my league.
So of course the natural reaction is to compare this to King of Kong, since it follows a similar story (the quest for the best player of an old game in a tournament) and while there is no Billy Mitchell here, I mean there really is only one Billy Mitchell, it is an awesome documentary on a game that pretty much everyone between the ages of twenty and fifty has played.
The doc. mainly follows a small group of very good players who have the highest scores possible and have accomplished things in the game that most of us never even thought possible. We meet them all as they lead up to the and also get the history of competitive Tetris,
including a 14 year-old wunderkind named Thor who had won the Nintendo Tetris championships way back in the day. He becomes the elusive, shadowy figure hanging over the competition throughout the film and his story is very interesting when you finally get to hear it.
I loved this documentary because it has everything I look for in this type of film; fun, drama, competition, and nostalgia. I was riveted for the duration.
There are a few negatives; the production quality is a bit lower than some other, similar documentaries, plus I was not a big fan of the narration; the guy's voice was not right for it at all. I also could have used a bit more of the actual tournament stuff, but that may just be me; I could watch people play that game for hours. Something about seeing people at the absolute peak of what they are doing is quite fascinating and satisfying to watch.
Now I just need someone to do a documentary on Street Fighter II. Maybe I could even be in it.
KT