MUBI

The real interesting thing about this film is in the controversy of what was left out of it (Mitchell’s “darker” side, score controversies, information made up to protect Mitchell’s scores) and what that would make it become. One option is a sort of satire on nationalism/fascism, the other an examination of truth in cinema and how media can distort information.

The satire angle examines a community of individuals constantly push out and combat the attempts of an outsider from getting recognition from their god/nation/ideology (classic arcade games) with both militant (attempted sabotage of machine) and political (the illusion of rules) methods. They even have their charismatic, cartoonish figurehead. Remember, for satire to be its most effective it must be somewhat unrelated to what it is satirizing (Dead Trilogy, Starship Troopers).

The other angle comes from the information the filmmakers have kept from us. Steve Wiebe held another high score for three years, when it was taken back the record reverted to Wiebe’s previous score, not Mitchell’s score as the film implies. There was also another man who broke Mitchell’s original score, though it is contested. This blurring of reality heightens the heroic arc of Wiebe, and grants him two adversaries to try crush his heroic path (The manipulator and the corporation, the favoured villain of the modern era) which would not be present otherwise. We go from simple competition to an amusing journey of nerds duelling to see whose spirit will crumble before the archaic and forgotten war machine.