utgard14 Laughably bad sequel to the Dino de Laurentiis 1976 version of King Kong, itself an epic ape turd. The ridiculous plot has Kong, having survived the fall at the end of the last film, comatose for ten years needing a heart operation. Problem is they need blood and he's the only giant gorilla around. That is until a female Kong is conveniently discovered by a wannabe Indiana Jones (Brian Kerwin). So he captures it and surgeon Linda Hamilton uses its blood to save Kong. Then Kong and his new girlfriend break free and go on the run together, stopping to eat snakes and moss and have sex. I can't even believe I'm typing this nonsense. This is a movie someone paid to make. What a world.This is awful stuff but it does have some so-bad-it's-good qualities. I can only imagine the room in which the screenwriters wrote this was filled with ganja smoke. Who wants to see a King Kong movie for heart transplants or giant apes falling in love and having babies? Sadly the romance between the apes isn't half as bland as the romance between the humans. Hamilton is fine in her role. She manages to keep a straight face throughout, which I imagine took some doing. She does have a couple of truly pitiful lines, though. Like when she is about to have sex with Brian Kerwin, she says "It's what primates do." For his part playing the man-child love interest who discovers Lady Kong, Kerwin doesn't impress but with the way the part is written he never really could have. The bad guy is Taggart from Beverly Hills Cop. He's really good at playing hard asses. His character's fate is hilarious.Because it's the 80s there are lots of vehicle flips. The special (ha!) effects, courtesy of Carlo Rambaldi, are pathetic. More guy-in-ape-suit silliness. The best things I can say about this stinker are that (1) It has quite a bit of unintended comedy (2) John Scott's score isn't half-bad and (3) Linda Hamilton looks stunning. The cinematographer obviously knew it as his camera lingers on her in every close-up. Best moment? Kong steps on a DeLorean. This is objectively not a good movie. How much enjoyment you will get out of it depends on your tolerance for movies so bad you can only find joy in making fun of them.

ultramatt2000-1 To honor the tenth anniversary of "Matthew Rants," I have been requested to review KING KONG LIVES. I did not have enough time to go and critique at IMDb because I was busy. So here it is, KING KONG LIVES. It all started in 1976 when Dino De Laurentiis, announced to sequel to follow his remake, THE BIONIC KONG and KING KONG IN Africa (a.k.a. KING KONG GOES TO Africa). In the late seventies, they ended up announcing that their next official sequel was going to be KING KONG IN Africa where Kong gets resurrected Frankenstein-style and works for bad guys (similar to KING KONG ESCAPES, which is reviewed by me). It also says that Jack Prescott and Dwan make a return and Dwan tries to refresh Kong's memory, but instead he eats her up! Later the script was changed to KING KONG IN MOSCOW, but that didn't get made. So they decided to make a crossover movie where his giant ape fights his killer whale in KING KONG VS.ORCA. That would be a great spectacle than this piece of trash, but they ended up making this instead. I remember KING KONG LIVES when I was a kid. I thought this was fun, but it took me a while to realize how bad this film was, and little me tell you, this film was bad with a capital B! Somehow, this film, akin to the 1976 remake was a frequently rented/borrowed/watched movie. Why? Because it is the only good thing in various video libraries. It was the only monster movie (apart from the 1976 film) that had a PG to PG-13 rating. Back then most monster movies from the 80's and 90's carried R-ratings. Another reason, is because that monster movies are kids stuff vs. monster movies are not for kids kind of situation is going around. I was longing to see the 1976 remake until I was 15, but that's another story. How dumb could those people be to have this ape resurrected because there is not enough blood for him. How did Lady Kong (who had such a grating roar) get in the picture, did Brian Kerwin read about her in Jack Prescott's book "Ape Myths and Legends?" It is still a stupid idea to resurrect the ape and bring back another one. Then these two would destroy go wild. Kong's roar sounded like as if Frank Welker did it. Here's a fact, Peter Cullen (you might know him as the voice of Optimis Prime in the original TRANSFORMERS series), provided the vocal effects for King Kong in the 1976 remake, but blood started coming out of his mouth and was rushed to a hospital. It was funny to see Kong eat up people because I was used to seeing cartoon characters get eaten up by monsters. The film apes (no pun intended) KONGA, ESCAPE FROM THE PLANET OF THE APES and MIGHTY JOE YOUNG. The ending also copies SPARTACUS. After that movie, why not make a sequel. They did...NOT! Well they were originally going to do a third one called SON OF KONG where the little baby Kong grows up to be teenaged and falls for this blond mountain climber. Achilles Heel: He's got vertigo. So he follows the girl to Paris. There, she is kidnapped by terrorists and she is with one of the many hostages up in the Eiffel Tower. It's the Son of Kong to the rescue where he conquers his fear of heights and fights the terrorists. It is a good thing that never got made, because every James Rolfe (of ANGRY VIDEO GAME NERD FAME) and Doug Walker (of NOSTALGIA CRITIC fame) would go bananas. So there you have it. What's the moral of the story? Do not mess around with mother nature and stay away from this movie! Because it wouldn't hurt to think outside the box.

steeltides It's fun! This movie got terrible reviews but I gotta say: if you enjoy the other King Kong films and are a fan, it's an enjoyable flick. It's brimming with intentional goofiness and gags, and while not an astonishingly great piece cinema like the '33 classic, at least it's fun, and surpasses all the other 'Kongs' except for Peter Jackson's remake. The script is pretty tight (for a sequel) and there are a couple memorable action setpieces ... lots of ill-meaning soldiers get crushed, Kong style. The acting is fine, the 80's special effects serve their purpose, and the score is actually quite colorful and carries the movie well.If you were entertained at all by the '76 original, this is definitely worth watching. There are only a handful of King Kong movies to choose from, after all.

MartinHafer KING KONG LIVES is a great example of a big budget yet total ineptness throughout. While schlock directors like Ed Wood, Arch Hall and Al Adamson can make really bad films, their budgets are minuscule. Here, however, with a big budget the producers show that they can produce a film every bit as bad. That's a great great return on your money, folks! This is also one of those films whose concept is so bizarre and dumb you wonder how it ever got made in the first place. First, considering how much of an enormous box office bomb the previous version of KING KONG was, you'd be amazed to see this this is a sequel! Second, the entire idea just makes no sense at all. This sequel begins as you see Kong falling to his death at the end of KING KONG (1976). But, despite falling a bazillion stories AND being machine gunned repeatedly, KING KONG LIVES expects us to accept that the giant ape DID NOT DIE!!! And, here's the weirdest part folks, some evil rich guy has been paying to keep the ape on life support in a warehouse for a decade!!! Why?!? This NEVER is explored in the least. And, after the nasty simian destroys New York, this guy has the idea of trying to revive this beast!?!In contrast to the evil industrialist (and aren't they all in these sort of films?!), you have the dedicated people (the doctor who saved Kong and the man who discovered a female Kong) who want to save the ape and return it to the wild--sort of like that kid from ET. And, when the military comes into the film, you KNOW that they are evil and only want to kill. So, it's the two innocent idiots who have to battle the unfeeling idiots who want to kill Kong and his new lady love (yes, folks, there are now TWO giant apes in this film). So, despite Linda Hamilton (who really seems to have a thing for big hairy guys) and some other jerk armed only with pluck, they are able to sneak past a bazillion idiot soldiers and the forces of the evil idiot rich dude...and save the day. In the process, the cars and trucks of the evil rich dude inexplicably run into each other and instantly explode in flames--thus enabling the apes and the only two who understand and care to escape. One of my favorite awful scenes was right after this when the male and female apes escape. They are now in the wild and are at a place called "Honeymoon Ridge"--at which place, naturally, the now adorable aminals start cooing and falling in love! Oh, this is stupid and I couldn't help but groan...and laugh. And, when the two ape-lovers happen upon them, guy what happens next?! Yes, they, too, are smitten and inspired by the apes' pure and innocent love! A short time later, the evil military mess up this perfect love and manage to gas the female ape to sleep. This works very, very well. So, when Kong shows up a minute later, they barely even try to put him to sleep as well but throw bombs and stuff at him--and really ticking him off in the process. Why didn't they also just put Kong to sleep as well and transport them to a sanctuary or a zoo or to Disney's Animal Kingdom?! So, given that the two lovers are separated, is what happens next really much of a surprise?! However, I was surprised to see that Kong survived by hiding out and eating alligators--and later, even people. The ape appears to be a giant gorilla--and gorillas are vegetarians. Also, the forest where Kong and Mrs. Kong hied out appears to be some place like Idaho or Colorado. Which begs the question "what are giant rubber alligators doing in this part of the United States?!?".Now I noticed that this movie won a Razzie award for its special effects and I actually think this is unfair. The ape suits were not that bad and the special effects are actually the best thing about this terrible film. I do agree with the Razzie book (which I own) that it is a great movie to see because it is so laughably bad, but the award seemed misplaced. To have given an award for writing, directing or even acting would have seemed a lot more appropriate because of the silly lovemaking that occurred between the apes--now THAT was dumb! But the costumes weren't that bad for 1986 (other than Baby Kong's--whose was truly terrible). Also, in the film's defense, while the film was 100% stupid, it looked good--with good camera-work and decent effects. But, at heart, despite this, it was still incredibly dumb. And, speaking of the love of two apes, apparently the two apes can meet, have sex and have a baby all in the space of a day or two. Wow, those giant apes work fast!! And, with no amniotic fluid, placenta or mess whatsoever!! And, oddly, the baby turns out to be about the size of a normal gorilla--making me wonder who the father REALLY was!!! Apparently, Mrs. Kong was quite the slut! By the way, apparently the people inside the Mr. and Mrs. Kong's outfits were both guys. This makes the amazing childbirth scene all the more amazing!!!Oh, and the only good scene in the entire dreadful film involves Kong ripping some dumb redneck in half and then eat another. It's dumb but kinda cool as well. Although, it's pretty sad if this is the BEST thing the film has to offer! It's also interesting because the ape only appears to eat bad people--despite man chances to eat others, it only eats these rednecks who deserved it!