Movies based on video games have never been bigger—just look at “The Super Mario Bros. Movie” (2023), “A Minecraft Movie” (tbr. 2025) and the “Sonic the Hedgehog” movie series, for a start. Nothing exemplifies this surge quite so much as the recently released “Pong Movie,” a movie adaptation of Atari’s popular game Pong.
Director M. Night Shyamalan stated in an interview that he wanted nothing more than “to pay tribute to the shapes” and “give a voice to the voiceless.” This presumably references the main characters, who have no speaking lines in the original game.
“Pong Movie” is an enemies-to-lovers romance between long-standing rivals Pong, voiced by Andy Samberg, and Ping, voiced by Ayo Edebiri. Pong is the white rectangle on the left side of the game, and Ping is—you guessed it—the white rectangle on the right side of the game. Their relationship is established at the beginning of the movie as a harsh rivalry, full of arguing and insults. Over the course of 137 minutes, the two rectangles begin to fall for each other, but find themselves limited by their inability to move any way other than up and down the screen.
The entire runtime of “Pong Movie” is one long game of Pong. The very first thing you see is a “Start Game” screen, and the last image before the credits is the “Game Over” screen. The only movement is the ball moving across the screen and the two paddles moving to hit it. The beginning of the movie is a flurry of back-and-forth scoring, with each paddle determined to defeat the other. The final match point, however, hangs in the balance for nearly the entire second half of the movie as the characters come to the realization that once the game is won, they will both cease to be and therefore lose each other forever.
“Pong Movie” is a fascinating look at the nature of existence and relationships. Our existence as people in the universe is merely a blip on the radar, and our relationships are but a blip within that blip. As the film exemplifies, even if you find the right person, you may never truly be with them before it all ends.
I cannot recommend this movie enough. I wish it had been longer than two hours and 17 minutes. Please go out and see “Pong Movie.” You’ll never experience more raw and intense feelings than when you find out who wins the game.
Benjamin Dover is a senior majoring in fish farming and minoring in puppetry.
