vulture picture palace

Game Over

Seth Gordon’s documentary The King of Kong, about classic-arcade-game competitors, is opening this week to great reviews. Thinking back to the glory days of Donkey Kong reminded us of this hilarious, truly bizarre little film from the Brooklyn-based comedy troupe POYKPAC. Here, we reenter the beloved gorilla-baiting plumber’s life long after he’s rescued Princess Peach from the Mushroom Kingdom. Now, Peach and Mario are living in a dump in Brooklyn, and Mario’s mushroom habit has become, well, a problem. The result plays like some kind of unholy cross between Raging Bull and Spun. And it does so on a shoestring: Mario: Game Over transcends its sketch-comedy origins and gains a kind of rough epic grandeur — especially when our hero, in full-on hallucinogenic meltdown, starts trampling everything in his path. —Bilge Ebiri

Game Over