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Really Surprised!

Excellent adaptation.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

Extremely well-paced flick with excellent climax (unlike many meandering documentaries) it is much like an adult "Spellbound." Much like that movie, these people are fascinating characters more than anything else, and in many instances scrabble takes a backseat to the force of their personalities. It focuses on four masters competing in the days leading up to the Nationals - between the egos involved, the inter-personal problems and competition anxiety there is a ton of pathos and conflict that is also reminiscent of Fred Wiseman's early documentaries. I agree there could have been more focus on the nitty-gritty of specific matches or more information on strategy, but I think I (and others) would have gotten bored watching too much actual scrabble play.If you like documentaries at all, this comes highly recommended, it is very well edited and maintains interest the whole time.

I have to disagree vehemently with littlesiddie (though I do love Cambridge, LS!) -- Word Wars is one of the funniest, most engrossing, and occasionally even touching movies I've seen in the past few years, and I don't even like Scrabble. The movie introduces us to 4 top Scrabble competitors, with very different backgrounds, personalities, and approaches to preparing for combat. Their stories reveal a lifestyle that is consumed with Scrabble, as the competitors spend hours memorizing obscure words and battling each other into the wee hours, oblivious to their surroundings, their poverty, their lack of girlfriends....Our heroes (no heroines; women apparently just aren't that obsessive) are at once pathetic, inspiring, and hilarious as we watch the tension build toward the ultimate showdown, the final test of memory, stamina, and individual dominance, the national championship for the big bonanza...grand prize $25,000. Are they just laughable geeks, with no sense of what's important in life? Or are they the truly enlightened, having found their Nirvana in the land of triple word scores? (Plus you learn a lot of cool words.)

I saw this film during the 2nd Annual Independent Film Festival in Cambridge, MA. I like documentaries and enjoyed this one very much. This film was a great representation of the cliche' "truth is stranger than fiction." The characters were very funny - not realizing how funny they actually are (which for me makes it even funnier). I'm amazed at how far some people will go to maintain their passion for Scrabble. I thought the film was put together well and was amused by certain scenes. One where 2 players say they are not friends, wouldn't consider each other friends, but room together and in one scene you see one shaving the back of the other's neck. It was those scenes of contradiction that worked well. I would add this film to my Indie collection.

This is one of the best documentaries I have seen in quite some time. At first I thought it was a mockumentary because it is so hilarious, but after talking with the director after (who also plays scrabble,) I know that these people are real and actually this hilarious. The people that the director follows are incredible in their own ways, from G.I. (gastrointestinal) Joel to a Tai-Chi Scrabble Master to a "badarse mothaf***a" (who lives with his mom,)... this film offers an insightful view into the competitive world of Scrabble and also the people who obsess over it and commit their lives to it (many are unemployed). This is definitely a 10. You should definitely check it out if you like "Waiting for Guffman".